


Omega

by weeping_willow



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alpha John, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Attempted Kidnapping, Attempted Murder, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Case Fic, Complete, Consensual Sex, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Minor Violence, Murder Mystery, Mystery, Omega Sherlock, Omega Verse, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Past Violence, the only detailed sexual encounter is totally consensual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-09 17:16:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 28,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7810480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weeping_willow/pseuds/weeping_willow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon through season 1. Sherlock's kept his Omega status hidden, but develops feelings for his Alpha roommate John. Can he find a way to get John interested in him-- despite the fact that the man only dates Betas-- AND find a serial killer at the same time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Intro

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, or any of Doyle's characters. No monetary compensation is received from publishing this work.  
> Not beta'd, not britpicked. Edited too much-- please help me, I can't stop  
> This series is mostly finished, I am currently working on editing, editing, editing-- more chapters coming soon!

The stench was unbelievable.

It hung around the entire area about the abandoned dockside warehouse, seeping into Sherlock’s coat fibres. A couple of the newbies were some distance away, trying to get clear air by the police cars. Sherlock smirked as he scanned the weathered wooden boards for clues; they would learn. There really isn’t anything you can do to get that smell away once you’ve been exposed. It clings to the inside of your nose hairs; it is absorbed into the hair and skin; the memory of it will randomly make appearances when you least expect it, like when you are about to bite into a sandwich. Sherlock’s large nose flared as he inhaled again, the familiarity of the smell almost comforting.

No matter where they were found, water-decomposed corpses always smelled the same.

“This is a strange one,” Lestrade said from somewhere behind Sherlock’s left ear. “It appears to be totally degraded, the tissues dissolved by something. The perp must have been trying to get rid of the evidence somehow.”

“It’s clearly acid,” Anderson’s nasally voice pierced through the thick air. He was standing near the warehouse corner where the body had been recovered, hands carefully covered in latex, doing… something idiotic, Sherlock didn’t care to deduce what. “That degree of decomp? The way the skin gelatinised? It’s the only explanation.”

Sherlock felt a headache coming on. He usually felt it every time Anderson opened his mouth, this time was no exception.

“The victim is a blonde Omega,” Lestrade said, “Several missing Omegas with blonde hair have been reported recently. I know that the Missing Persons department had hoped to find all of them alive, but unfortunately it looks like this poor chap may be one of them. No signs of any of the other missing persons. They may not be connected.”

Sherlock nodded curtly. His deep breaths earlier had already told him the story. Now he just needed to confirm.

Anderson made a disgusted sound, and Lestrade made a sound of shock, as Sherlock carefully poked the corpse’s arm, testing the viscosity of the skin remains with his fingers, estimating the thickness. Sally’s irritated voice barked, “You know, you could actually wear gloves to do that. Freak.”

As though it weren’t inherently obvious that I would be unable to feel the skin properly while wearing gloves? Sherlock bit back the reply. If he wasted his energy replying to every single stupid thing people said to him, then he’d never have energy for anything else—like his experiments. He took a step back and absently wiped his hands on the alcohol wipe that had materialised by his side. Good old Watson.

“Well, my investigation is concluded here,” he said, attempting to smile at Lestrade. He had read in a book once that smiling at people was a good technique to make them respond in a positive way. Sherlock wasn’t too sure about the validity of that book—for him, smiling seemed to elicit highly varied results from others. He scanned Lestrade’s face: he could tell by the tightening around his eyes, and the downturned corners of his mouth, that Lestrade believed Sherlock’s smile was not sincere. His smile had failed, the response elicited was negative. Damnit. Well, at least he had tried—that was more than he could say for the rest of this lot.

Pushing down the now-familiar rise of bitterness, he turned on his heel and strode out of the building. He heard Lestrade yelling behind him. “Oi! Sherlock, what the hell! What do you mean your investigation is concluded? You haven’t even done anything! Sherlock!”

“Call me when you actually want me,” he growled, hiding his face in his coat collar. He could hear Sally whispering to Anderson, saying that he was having a childish fit. He knew that she thought he couldn’t hear her. But he did.

What was the point? Why call him up specifically, ask for his help, only to bring him in front of people who hated him, who criticised him, and who didn’t want his help at all? It made no sense. Was the point just to provide him as fodder for their office jokes? And he knew about those jokes, too. They thought he didn’t. But he had ears everywhere. He knew what they said about him.

_I just can’t win _,__ he thought. _ __I thought I wouldn’t have to endure the social ostracisation anymore after I changed. After I___...

“Ok. So, where are we going now, Sherlock?”

The warm voice to his right surprised Sherlock. He still wasn’t used to it, even after all these months. But when he turned his head, there he was—the tousled blonde hair, the determined stride, the sun-weathered face. John.

What the hell are you still doing here? The question was on the tip of his tongue. He almost asked it, but pushed it down at the last minute. He didn’t want to drive John away by asking too many questions. People didn’t like it when he asked questions. Usually he didn’t care about other people too much, but John was different—he liked John. John liked him. He didn’t want to drive John away by being too curious.

Belatedly, he realised he had been staring at John for several minutes, far longer than was socially acceptable. For some reason, John didn’t care about this; he just continued to calmly look up at Sherlock, hands in his pockets. Why wasn’t he yelling at Sherlock to stop staring?

“I need to gather a sample,” Sherlock said, pulling a glass phial out of his pocket. “Then we can go back to Baker Street.”

The gulls flying by the docks were the only witnesses to John patiently waiting for the detective, silently watching as the dark haired man dipped the phial into an abandoned water cistern next to the building. Because Sherlock was focussing so intently on the phial, John felt safe enough to let his guard fall, just a little bit—to openly admire the figure of his tall flatmate. Let the gulls be the only witnesses to how soft John’s gaze was, to how unfaltering his step was as he followed Holmes back to the street, and how he determinedly followed the detective onward, unquestioningly. Both the gulls’ cries and their taxi disappeared into the hum of the city.


	2. Backstory: Age 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of Sherlock's background.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anybody know how to insert a picture into text? Any help would be appreciated, thanks
> 
> There is NO sexual molestation in this chapter. Sherlock is traumatised by a visit to the doctor's, but the doctor is completely professional and not inappropriate in any way. Just to make that clear.

When Sherlock was a child, he had watched with fascination as, every morning, his Father shaved his face, put on a tie and fancy shoes, and went to work with a thin briefcase. He had once picked the briefcase open, to see what treasures were inside, but it was only a series of incredibly boring papers and some paperclips and pens. He had then re-locked the case, placed it back exactly where he found it, and left to go do something more interesting. No one suspected a 6 year old of picking a lock. Except for Mycroft, that git. He smirked knowingly at Sherlock as if to say, ‘See, I told you so. Boring.’

Sherlock had always assumed that he would grow up to be just like his Dad. Why wouldn’t he? He practiced shaving with shaving cream and a razor in front of the mirror, just like Dad. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to tie a tie around his neck. Mycroft thought he was an idiot for not being able to do something as simple as tie a knot. Sherlock thought Mycroft was a fat, interfering goody two-shoes who needed to mind his own business.

Therefore, it was with unprecedented shock when, in the summer of his eleventh year, a visit to the Doctor’s turned his whole world upside down. He would say it was a nightmare, except it wasn’t; Sherlock never dreamed about this, not even once. It wasn’t even inside the realm of possibility, so every moment of that horrible day felt less like a dream and more like a slip into an alternate reality.

It had started out with terrible cramping and pain in his abdomen. Originally, he assumed that it was because of something he ate. However, when the spasms continued a solid 48 hours later (far beyond the normal incubation time of the average stomach virus), Sherlock decided that he had probably poisoned himself by accident, and a trip to the Doctor was in order. He worried that he had waited too long to report his symptoms, and they weren’t going to be able to save him. He also wondered what on earth had poisoned him, since he had taken all safety precautions with his experiments, hadn’t he?

At the Doctor’s, mum plied him with endless books in the waiting room, trying to keep him entertained so he wouldn’t bother the other patients.  She was unconcerned, as Sherlock had lied and told her he might have a virus (didn’t want to unnecessarily worry her about poisoning). Mycroft had rolled his eyes and continued reading his magazine (something really boring about politics). Clearly, Mycroft knew he had poisoned himself and didn’t care. He now looked disgruntled at being forced to leave the house and go with them to the Doctor’s. He was still reading his boring magazine, so Sherlock didn’t see what difference it made, whether he read it here or back at the house.

During the examination, Sherlock made sure to very clearly state the most relevant symptoms, prodding the doctor in the right direction. She was a sweet elderly lady with the patience of a saint, who had worked with children her entire career—she didn’t take it personally when Sherlock insulted her, since she just blamed it on him being afraid of the doctor’s office. Sherlock never bothered to correct her, although he found her attitude rather patronising.

Hence his surprise when she called his mother in to discuss his lab results—there was no evidence of any sort of infection, neither bacterial nor viral, and just to make sure she had tested for several poisons too, all of which also came back negative. She wanted to do an ultrasound.

At this point, Sherlock assumed she was a moron. Not only was she patronising, but she was also completely and utterly incompetent at her job. Who had hired her? Why had she not been fired already, or sued for malpractice? There was no need to scan Sherlock for a uterus, because there was no way he could be an omega.

Sherlock had read in his biology textbook that omegas were extremely rare. The chances of someone being born an omega were about one in a hundred. Most omegas were born into families of distinct ‘lines’: that is, families with a history of alpha and omega ancestors. His family had no such lineage. All of his relatives, both immediate and distant, were betas. He was a beta. Mycroft was a beta.  Why on earth was this idiot woman trying to schedule him for an ultrasound instead of more in-depth poison testing?

The week spent waiting for the scheduled ultrasound was hell. Sherlock fervently researched at-home poisoning remedies, but the ingredients would be difficult to obtain, especially since he wasn’t entirely sure which compound had poisoned him.  His abdominal and back pains waxed and waned at seemingly random intervals, and this irritated him beyond measure. How was he supposed to form any kind of meaningful data chart with such rubbish plot points? Mycroft, especially, was irritating. Sherlock’s brother no longer thought that Sherlock was boring. He had stopped reading his dull political magazine, and was instead reading dull biology and medical texts. Whenever Sherlock stomped out of his room to get a new hot water bottle for his back, Mycroft would stare unblinkingly at him, and this enraged Sherlock. There was just something about that… _expression_ that got under his skin. Sherlock got himself thoroughly grounded by attacking his brother, and he thought that beating that ugly face in would be worth it, but about five minutes later he was overcome by a wave of remorse. Fortunately, he had been sent to his room in isolation, so no one else had to witness his shameful tears.

Honestly, the little curly-haired eleven-year-old was just ready to have the damn ultrasound over with already, so he could go back to normal life—assuming, of course, he survived whatever alkaloid he had inadvertently consumed. He thoroughly regretted ever telling his mom about the belly aches, and wished he could have just borne them out alone. Nothing good ever came from trying to get help from other people, it was a lesson he would not forget. The cold gel the tech smeared on his thin stomach that following Friday only cemented that lesson.

It honestly took a while for Sherlock to realise that the ultrasound tech was speaking English. For a few minutes, the words coming out of her mouth were so unknown that he had assumed she was speaking Hangul (a language Sherlock had no knowledge of). She was pointing at the screen, outlining grainy black-and-white images with her finger, explaining how she was pointing at the edge of a uterus. Sherlock was pretty mad, because how dare this woman rig the ultrasound machine to make it look like Sherlock had one of those… things? Because he didn’t have one, and this tech had clearly set out to ruin his life.

His mother had her hand to her face, in a sort of surprised ‘O’ shape, but Mycroft didn’t look surprised at all. He looked like he was mainly using this as an opportunity to study how the ultrasound machine worked, and how the technician was using the wand. Sherlock wished he could be doing that too, but he couldn’t see the screen well from where he was laying, and the gel was cold, and he was uncomfortable and he just wanted to go home.

Then, he was issued into another room, a normal exam room, and he thought that it was so he could get changed out of the flimsy gown. But he was barely in the room for five minutes when a young, grinning nurse walked through the door. She was wearing soft pink scrubs, and even her blonde ponytail seemed peppy.  Sherlock wondered what the hell she was so happy about. She began speaking more Hangul to him:  today was a great day for him, she said, and the first day of his incredible journey into adulthood, wasn’t that so exciting? She shoved some pamphlets into his hands. Sherlock stared at the bright, colourful papers as though they might bite him. Mycroft had gone through puberty a few years earlier, and he didn’t get any pamphlets like these. Why did Sherlock need so many instructions?? In his shock, he saw that they had strange titles like ‘Healthy Body, Healthy You! A Nutrition Guide for Young Omegas’, and ‘Your Changing Body: What to Expect’ and ‘Omega Diaries—my first heat!’ 

After reading the word ‘heat’, Sherlock shut down. In retrospect, it was probably the beginning stages of shock, not that he knew that at the time. He was vaguely aware that he had said something to get the peppy nurse out of his room, and that she was very distinctly not peppy anymore.  She was swiftly followed by a different doctor, some woman in her mid-thirties.

“Where’s Dr. Lida?” Sherlock had never been examined by someone who wasn’t Doctor Lida. He didn’t want to start now, this day had been upsetting enough already. “Dr. Lida is a paediatrician,” explained this new, strange doctor. “She isn’t specialized in Omega medicine. From now on, I’ll be your primary care physician at this clinic. So you can come to me with any questions, okay?”  Her eyes crinkled up, so Sherlock assumed that underneath her face mask, she was smiling.

“All right now, young man.  You’ve had your ultrasound, and it looks like everything is developing normally, just as it should. I’ll be doing the physical part of your exam today, so hop up onto this table, ok?”

Half an hour later, Sherlock was back in the car, staring blankly at the scenery rushing by as they returned home. The physical examination had been infinitely worse than anything else thus far. That devil of a woman had… touched him… _down there_. She said that it was to look and feel for any physical abnormalities, and that his pamphlets would explain more. Sherlock’s memories were blurred out for the next half hour, and he could only remember flashes of things through that rictus of terror. The feeling of being _exposed_ , of having his legs spread out to either side, of not being able to move, of someone else touching his _butt cheeks_ …  he did his best to erase all memories of the incident.

…………………………………………………..

Sherlock’s colourful pamphlets stayed where he had dumped them on his desk for about two weeks. After that, he trashed them. He had eventually read them, reluctantly and as quickly as possible.  He was still a little bit pissed off that he had a pamphlet for every colour of the rainbow, but Mycroft had none.  Why were they treating him so differently from Mycroft?

And he was treated differently.  For some reason, his Dad didn’t want to roughly wrestle and play-fight with him anymore. Whenever he tried to practice shaving in the mirror, his father would frown and tell him to stop, and ‘be more appropriate’.  But what did that mean? A week ago, pretending to shave in the mirror was cute. Now it was ‘inappropriate’? Sherlock was confused.

His mum took him out shopping for a new swimsuit. She seemed, bizarrely, delighted by the whole thing. Sherlock didn’t understand what was wrong with his old swim trunks, since they still fit him just fine, but for some reason she insisted. He spent the majority of the shopping trip being terrified of the strange-looking mannequins and models in the wall photos. He had always assumed he would grow up to look like his dad, but these men… did not look like that. They were mostly hairless, with smooth limbs posed to show off the curves of their well-defined muscles. They all seemed to be laughing hysterically about something, too. Why were they having such a good time? Each day since being diagnosed an Omega had been miserable for Sherlock.

The models had full sensuous lips, small frames, with lightly curved hips and butts. Their arms and legs had pleasantly-shaped muscles, and they draped them elegantly over various props. Sherlock didn’t have curves, or muscles. He just had carrot stick limbs awkwardly attached to a thin torso. He had always assumed that his thinness was a phase, and that he would eventually broaden and fill out. But if these models were any indication, he would never grow big and strong like his Dad. Was it because of genetics? Or, if he exercised a lot, would he be able to grow big like he had always wanted?

Sherlock was so distracted by the models that he didn’t realize exactly what he was holding in his hands until his mother shoved him in the changing room.  The bizarre contraption in his hands was definitely not swim trunks. He turned it this way and that, and finally determined it to be some sort of bodysuit. The fabric was a bright jewel colour, just like one of those pamphlets.  Eventually he was able to get it on, after a lot of confusion and grunting. Bizarrely, it covered his chest completely, but did seem to have a low and unrestrictive neckline.

“Mum, I think it’s messed up,” he said through the door. It certainly looked wrong. 

“What? Open up the door, honey! I want to see what my baby looks like!”

Embarrassed, and eternally grateful that Mycroft had _not_ been included on this trip, Sherlock opened the door to his mum. She squealed and clapped her hands together, looking delighted. “Oh, you are so handsome, Sherlock!” She exclaimed. Sherlock honestly couldn’t understand why she would make such a bizarre statement. How could he be handsome when he was uncomfortable?

“Mum, I really don’t think this is right,” he muttered, looking down at the bodysuit. Surely there was supposed to be more coverage in the leg area? “Look, there’s no pants,” he pointed out to where a leg hole had been cut at the bottom of the leotard.

“That’s to make your legs look longer,” his mum said matter-of-factly.

What?

Sherlock pushed aside the questions—why did he want longer legs? Why did he want them to look longer, but not actually be longer? Who made the determination that long legs were a trait to be desired?—and focussed on the issue at hand. “I’m not wearing it, mum.”

Eventually, mum found him a blue and black wetsuit—with pants going to knee length—and short sleeves, similar to what a surfer might wear. It wasn’t ideal-- for some arbitrary reason, he was no longer allowed to go shirtless-- but Sherlock figured it was O.K. Even though the extra fabric would be bulky to work with, he’d no longer have to worry about burning his sensitive pale skin.

……………………………………………….

Over the next two weeks, Sherlock struggled with the cramping. He really couldn’t understand why the doctor only recommended some over-the-counter paracetamol, as he was fairly sure he was dying, and he KNEW they had stronger painkillers available by prescription.  He was also convinced that this new doctor was equally as incompetent as the last one, as she did not prescribe any muscle relaxants or anti-spasmodics either.  Instead, it was just an endless parade of hot water bottles and the nearly-useless paracetamol.  Sherlock attempted to sneak out of the house to meet up with one of his schoolmate ‘contacts’, but Mycroft caught him on his way out the back door and locked him unceremoniously in his room. Damnit! Mycroft must have been monitoring his computer internet usage using a spyware program, since he’d erased all of his ‘pain relieving effects of marijuana’ search results from his browser.  He’d have to search the machine to try to find it.

Sherlock knew, at some level, that his whiplash-inducing mood swings were driving everyone up the wall (including himself), but he just couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge that it was actually happening. He thoroughly erased all memories of events where his emotions got out of his control, and focussed instead on the physical pain.

Things got really weird after the two-week mark. He woke up after an extremely bizarre dream that he couldn’t remember, only to find his boxers soaked and a strange tingling sensation in his gut. At first, he thought he had wet himself; embarrassing, that hadn’t happened since he was a small child. But when he removed his boxers, his penis seemed overly sensitive, and he felt a drop of… _wetness_ … trickling down the inside of his butt cheek. He wiped away the wetness and stared at it on his hand. It was colourless and odourless, and seemed mostly transparent. He tested the viscosity by rubbing it through his fingers, and discovered it seemed quite slippery.

Sherlock was fairly certain that this new, bizarre biology was trying to kill him. When would the changes end? Would he ever wake up and find him returned to his former self? And why, oh why, did this have to happen to _him_? He distinctly did not remember Mycroft having so many difficulties with his puberty. Actually, he couldn’t remember Mycroft ever having difficulties with anything. For some reason, the fates had conspired to make Sherlock get the short end of the stick.

He stayed inside his room for the rest of that day, refusing to come out.  Every so often he would start to jack off, and then immediately stop after realising what he was doing.  He couldn’t seem to help it; he just seemed so… _sensitive_. He had removed his pants long ago, but the sensation of the rough cotton sheets against his skin was almost too much. Sherlock found himself flexing his muscles, shifting around, just trying to get comfortable, but he never quite seemed to get there.  Putting his pants back on was out of the question. They would have almost immediately gotten soaked anyways; his ass hadn’t stopped leaking that strange clear substance since he had woken up that morning.

At one point, Mycroft lingered outside his door, fretting that Sherlock hadn’t eaten anything. Eventually he was shooed away by their mother, and told that Sherlock would come out when he was able. Sherlock was surprisingly apathetic about this whole episode, considering that his brother’s presence had caused nothing but irritation for him the entire two weeks previous.  That evening, his mother opened the door a crack to push in water bottles and energy bars, but Sherlock couldn’t even fathom trying to eat anything; for some reason, it just didn’t appeal to him at all.

The heat ended approximately 48 hours after it began. Sherlock was exhausted from not eating or sleeping, but wolfing down the supplies by the door helped marginally. Although he felt sweaty and sticky, covered in various bodily fluids, and left with aching muscles from constantly squirming, Sherlock mostly felt a sense of profound relief: his cramping had finally stopped.  At last, it was over.

When he finally emerged from his room, Mycroft was waiting down at his end of the hall, and although he looked worried, he didn’t try to engage in conversation. Sherlock ignored him as best he could and made his way to the bathroom for a shower. When he came back, he found that his mother had changed out his bedclothes and a fresh set was in their place; he could hear the washing machine going from downstairs. This was highly embarrassing, but at least she didn’t try to have a ‘heart to heart’ chat with him or anything. Instead she just pet his hair when he walked into the kitchen, and cooked him a big fry-up for breakfast, while smiling at him. When she walked by him, she would squeeze his shoulder and pat his back a bit, which Sherlock really wished she wouldn’t do. However, the fry-up was delicious, so she was forgiven.

Some post-heat internet research revealed that 48-72 hours seemed to be the standard duration, so he was within normal parameters.  It also revealed that the strange clear substance was called ‘slick’ and was meant as a natural lubrication. Lubrication for what? Another internet search later, Sherlock was ready to have both his brain and his retinas bleached. Dear God why had he not activated safe search mode?

He really, really, really didn’t want to have another person’s penis inside his ass. Especially not penises as… large as the ones he had seen. He was familiar with the concept of Alphas of course, and knew that they were most commonly mentioned in tandem with Omegas, but he had never really considered that they might be… physiologically different to Betas in that department.  Most of the information readily available about Alphas mentioned their muscle size and strength, their tendency towards aggressiveness, and how most of them ended up joining the armed forces due to heavy recruitment campaigns (the army preferred physically superior men). Sherlock wasn’t interested. He could hardly even stand to be around the average clunky Betas in his school, how on earth would he cope with someone even less intellectual that?

He was about to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief summary of my imaginary omegaverse:
> 
> The majority of humanity are male and female Betas. There are a couple of outliers: male Alphas, female Alphas, and male Omegas. Alphas are basically amped up on testosterone, and in a primitive pre-history humanity, would have been primarily hunters and warriors. The reason their numbers are so few is because they are so aggressive, and often get themselves killed. I really won't be touching on the female Alphas, they don't have a place in this particular story. The male Omegas occupy a sort of transitory role between beta males and females. In pre-history, they would both hunt and gather. In today's society, they would be what we consider a 'stereotypical' gay man, and Omegas may feel pressure to behave, dress, and live in a certain way. Sherlock is completely alienated. Of course, the truth is that Omegas-- and modern LGBTQ men-- are only made that way through biology; not clothes, music, hobbies, or manner of speaking.


	3. Backstory Pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock at 11 years of age

.............................................................

 

 

After break was over, Sherlock returned back to his dull school with his dull classmates and dull homework assignments. Sherlock might relish this normalcy if it meant that he would never have to go through heat again, but unfortunately, he was due for another bout in 4 months’ time, so he detested his dull school as much as he ever did. He spent most of his time either in the laboratory or the library, and avoided conversation with his imbecilic mates as much as possible; business as usual.

At first, no one seemed to notice anything different about Sherlock. They treated him as they always had—either taunting him or ignoring him.

One day in November, while Sherlock was sitting in the library reading a publication on clot formations, a boy walked by Sherlock’s desk—did a double take, stopped in his tracks—and then walked back to stand in front of the desk.

At first, Sherlock assumed that the other boy was going to say “Wotcha readin?” and then proceed to taunt him for being a ‘nerd’. However, when several minutes of silence followed, Sherlock looked up from the journal to see what was taking the cretin so long.

To his surprise, the other boy was smiling at him. He seemed vaguely familiar; after a brief mental inventory, Sherlock identified him as Sebastian Wilkes, one of the school’s rugby players. He was slightly taller than the other boys, and was quite popular with the other jocks—had joined in their taunting Sherlock a few times in the past. Sherlock was quite certain that he was about to start doing just that any minute now.

Sebastian seemed to smile even harder now that Sherlock was actually looking at him. He seemed intent on showing the most amount of teeth possible. An intimidation tactic? There was something slightly off about his expression, something Sherlock couldn’t quite place. It probably wasn’t important. He went back to reading his article.

“Hey,” Wilkes said, nodding his chin at Sherlock, almost like he was greeting a friend. Had he confused Sherlock for someone else? Sherlock looked around, but no one else was nearby. When he had Sherlock’s gaze back on him, his grin returned full-force. “So, ah, you come here often?”

Sherlock raised one eyebrow. Of course he came here often. Everyone knew this. It was one of the only places that he could consistently be found, and the source of many taunts—except, apparently, this imbecile was too slow even to remember this most basic of information. “Yes,” he intoned, watching as Wilkes flexed his biceps at him. Clearly an intimidation tactic.

“Cool, cool,” Wilkes brushed back his chestnut hair in a gesture that was clearly supposed to be nonchalant, yet was anything but. He appeared nervous about something. Sherlock decided to nip this in the bud.

“Look, whatever hazing your friends have put you up to, just don’t. The damage to the books may not have any intrinsic value to you, but you would probably care about the monetary compensation the school will demand from your parents.”

Wilkes stared at him for a few seconds, clearly trying to understand what the curly-haired boy was saying. Eventually he worked it out, and laughed nervously. “Ah, I’m not going to haze you. I can see why you would think that, though. I guess I haven’t been too nice to you before now.”

Interesting. The cretin was attempting some sort of psychological manipulation; this could alleviate the crushing boredom for a few minutes. How long would he attempt to lull Sherlock into a sense of false security before attacking?

“But that was mostly because my friends were there,” Wilkes was saying, tilting his head at an angle that looked a bit posed. His smile flashed. “I can see I’ve been a bit unfair to you. How about we make it right? I could get to know you, one-on-one.”

A challenge to a fight. Sherlock weighed his options. If they left the building, damage to school property would be minimal; however, there would be fewer objects for Sherlock to bring into the fight, and less places to hide. He would never best Wilkes, a seasoned athlete, in a straight-up schoolyard tussle. His only option was to catch Wilkes by surprise—to strike first.

Nodding curtly, Sherlock stood, abandoning the scientific journal on the table. He strode forward, the rugby player stumbling eagerly in his wake. As soon as they had walked outside the doors of the building, Sherlock spun on a dime and clocked Wilkes directly across the jaw with as much power as he could muster. While Wilkes stumbled, Sherlock followed up with a left hand to the gut and a knee to Wilkes’s face. Then, while Wilkes was incapacitated, Sherlock beat a hasty retreat. He zig-zagged across the sports field, and then took the most complicated route he could think of through the school, to throw off Wilkes’s rugby team backup. None of them caught up with him, so Sherlock patted himself on the back and made his way to his next class.

 

……………………………………………………………………

 

The detention sentence was not unanticipated, but still boring nonetheless.

Of course, after he got home, his mother was fretting and worried about him being so late. Tedious; now he had to explain that he had had detention, again.

Strangely, while recounting his tale, his mother’s face seemed to do a series of contortions: one second she seemed angry, then sad, then holding back laughter. It was not the response Sherlock had expected at all.

“Sherlock, love,” she said tentatively, wringing her hands together in her lap. “This… Wilkes fellow. I, ah, I don’t think he was going to attack you.”

Sherlock found himself raising an eyebrow for a second time that day. Wilkes’s intentions had been as clear as day.

“What I mean to say, Sherlock, is… well, sometimes, when a boy likes somebody, he doesn’t always express himself properly. I think that this other boy may have had a little crush on you.”

A crush? Impossible. “No, Mother, I really don’t think those were his intentions,” Sherlock said. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see his body language.”

“Well, okay,” Mummy replied, still wringing her hands. “But—just think about it, love. You are a rather lovely Omega. There are bound to be a few Alphas interested.” Sherlock thought he heard her mutter ‘and you should punch them all’ after this, but he couldn’t be certain.

Because he could never leave a stone unturned, Sherlock spent the remainder of that evening on more internet research. According to Facebook, Sebastian Wilkes was indeed an Alpha (not in a relationship). This explained the height and prowess at rugby. Further research revealed that after a first heat, Omegas emitted a pheromone called AB-2 to indicate that they were sexually mature, and would continue to emit this pheromone until they had bonded. There seemed to be a corresponding receptor in Alphas—in layman’s terms, his body was advertising its availability, and Wilkes had answered.

Damnit.

…………………………………………………………………………

 

Wilkes never approached Sherlock again, for which Sherlock was eternally grateful. Neither did any of the other boys either, after they saw what he’d done to the rugby player’s face. Apparently, his knee-to-the-face trick had actually broken Wilkes’s nose, and he had rather impressive bruising for weeks.

Sherlock felt mildly bad about this, but quickly got over it. After all, those articles about blood clots weren’t going to read themselves.

………………………………………………………………………………..


	4. Present Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to the present: after the warehouse

………………………………………………………………………………..

 

Sherlock observed the water slides underneath his microscope with the sharp-eyed attentions of an eagle.  It took a few minutes of examination, but the slide eventually revealed the particles Sherlock knew it would.

Sherlock carefully labelled the water sample phial and tucked it away in a cupboard, and then turned to cleaning up the slides. From the living room, he could hear the rustle of a newspaper; John was reading it, looking for cases for him.

John was a bizarre anomaly in Sherlock’s otherwise totally structured life. When the man had first walked into Bart’s nearly a year ago, Sherlock read him: Alpha. Soldier. Athlete. Boring.

But then, the conversation between him and Mike made him look again—a doctor? Nearly unheard of for an Alpha. Taking the man’s phone had given him the opportunity to observe the man’s hands. Not just a doctor; a _surgeon_.  He not only had to be intelligent, but dedicated to devote so much time to study.  After all that time, why join the army?

The answer had revealed itself with time: John Watson was addicted to danger. The emergency surgery was all well and good, but nothing quite compared to having strangers take pot shots at you with guns.

Sherlock was quite pleased that he was able to add this element back into John Watson’s civilian life that he had been missing. If he hadn’t been able to provide this, then John would never have wanted to stay with him.

Surreptitiously, he observed John, who was sitting in a chair in the living room. A couple of things stood out: it looked like he had broken up with that Beta, Sarah, last night. About time, too. Sherlock tried not to dwell too long on the reason for his irrational hatred of her.  John didn’t seem too broken up about it: good.

Sherlock knew that his crush was a hopeless one. In their entire acquaintanceship, John had never shown proclivities towards anyone but Betas.  It wasn’t a surprise; many Alphas dated Betas. Alphas existed in the population at a ratio of about 1:75—still rare, but not as rare as Omegas, who only made up 1 out of every 100 people.  Since there were far fewer Omegas than Alphas, most Alpha men were open to dating both Omegas and Betas. The Alpha knot would only form in the presence of an Omega in heat, so it wouldn’t be a hindrance to any physical relationship an Alpha might form with a Beta woman.

Over time, dating an Omega had become something of a status symbol. There were even a few Alphas who refused to date anyone other than Omegas, but they were considered a bit classist.

Sherlock had been living… ‘incognito’, if you will… for the past decade. That is, he never openly declared his subgender; he wore dark, neutral masculine colours; and he kept his hair at an indeterminate length, somewhat longer than a typical Beta man, but shorter than the average Omega’s hair. The medication he was on neutralised his scent, making him seem more like a Beta, since they naturally had no distinctly recognisable scent.

Of course, if one had cared to look closer, they would have immediately seen that Sherlock wasn’t a Beta at all—but no one ever did. No one on the police force, none of his clients, and not even John, had ever taken a closer look. They all assumed he was a Beta man—not a normal Beta man, as he really wasn’t a normal anything, but a Beta man nonetheless.

And if Sherlock actually was a Beta, then there would be no problem—he would happily ask John out on a date, like he had wanted to for so long. But he couldn’t. The conclusion to that path was obvious: total disaster. 

Of course they would not have physical relations immediately. But after some time, it was inevitable that John would desire some sort of intimacy, and then there would be no hiding it—Sherlock’s body was unmistakably Omega.

Sherlock liked his Omega body. He didn’t mind the fact that his skin was softer and more sensitive, or that he had practically no body hair, or that his torso was less broad. He wished he could show John these parts of himself; and wished that John would respond positively. But he never would.

John would be furious at Sherlock’s deception during their relationship. He would be physically repulsed by Sherlock’s graceful and sinuous body; he would hate Sherlock. He would go away, and Sherlock would be alone again.

So Sherlock kept quiet, even though he saw the admiring glances John threw his way, when he thought Sherlock wasn’t looking.

…………………………………………………………….


	5. Backstory: Age 16

…………………………………………………………….

 

When Sherlock was sixteen, he spent the summer conducting a series of experiments on natural water sources, and the various organisms that could be found in each. Consequently, he spent almost all of his time by rivers, lakes, ponds, bogs, streams, and sumps. Mycroft appeared especially disgusted each time he came home covered in muddy water and smelling like rot.

Mycroft had long ago gotten used to Sherlock’s thrice-yearly heats, and seemed resigned that once every four months, Sherlock would stamp about the house and rage about his painful cramps, and then disappear into his room for two days. He had gotten over his worry that Sherlock would die from starvation, since Sherlock appeared unharmed at the end of each episode, with a healthy appetite to make up for his fasting.  However, he never seemed used to Sherlock’s penchant for ‘legwork’ regarding his experiments. Mycroft enjoyed learning, perhaps even more so than the younger Holmes boy, but never went beyond lifting a book to his face in terms of physical exertion. Sometimes Sherlock wondered if they were actually related.

That summer, after much begging, pleading, and nagging, Sherlock convinced his parents that a trip to the beach was in order. He _needed_ to obtain salt water data to make his experiment complete. He managed to finagle them into going to a beach which contained both an estuary and a salt water marsh. Mycroft seemed disgruntled at the idea of leaving the house, but packed up his books with minimal complaint.

All in all, the trip started out very well. His parents seemed well content to lie on their towels like beached whales, while Mycroft sat under an umbrella in full clothes and shoes (he disliked the feeling of sand on his skin, claimed it was gritty and uncomfortable).  Meanwhile, Sherlock was free to conduct his investigations without hindrance. He had many small phials he had ordered from the internet, all ready to make up a new collection. The pale-eyed boy rubbed his hands together with glee and immediately set out down the shoreline, making notes on some waterproof moleskin paper and collecting anything and everything that looked promising.

Eventually, he worked his way back to the salt water marsh, quite some distance away from his parents and Mycroft. There was a series of sandy dunes behind the beach, and on the other side of these dunes lay the marsh. Sherlock was immediately fascinated by how drastically different the ecosystem was on the other side of those dunes, separated by only a few dozen metres. Already, his collection was proving to be more biodiverse than he had ever imagined!

He was so excited by his specimens that it took Sherlock some time before he noticed that he was being watched. Up on the top of the dunes was a man, just standing there, looking down at him. It looked like the man had been coming over the rise to see what was on the other side, and then had frozen in place. Sherlock assumed he was some idiot who was lost and trying to get their bearings, and continued to carefully lower his jars into the water. Ten minutes later, the man was still standing there, very still. And he was definitely looking at Sherlock.

Sherlock wasn’t quite sure what to do. He had never been in this situation before: the subject of uncomfortable staring. He was used to being the one staring at others, of observing them—now that the situation was reversed, he wasn’t quite sure that he liked it.

He glared up at the man on the hill, to get him to go away, and this seemed to un-freeze him. Tentatively, he made his way down the side of the dune, towards where Sherlock was crouched over. Sherlock straightened up. Why wasn’t the man leaving? Everyone always left when Sherlock glared at them. He tried glaring harder.

The man stopped about ten feet away, smiling predatorily. Why would someone smile so happily at being glared at? It made no sense. Sherlock realized that the man was looking at him, but… it didn’t seem like he was making deductions. Instead, he was raking his eyes over every inch of Sherlock’s body, especially his hips and butt. Over the years, they had put on a scant amount of weight, making him appear slightly curvier in profile. It appeared that his dreams of growing manly chest hair and large arm muscles were dashed, although Sherlock made sure he was just as strong as the other guys by boxing regularly. It just… didn’t show much, that’s all.

Somehow, this creepy man’s eyes seemed to be trying their hardest to stare through his blue wetsuit. It made Sherlock feel… dirty, almost like those eyes were physically touching him. And although he knew it was an illogical thought, that didn’t stop the shiver from going down his spine. He took a step back, involuntarily. The man’s grin widened.

“Hey there, Omega,” the man rasped.  “You look like you’re having fun, out on the beach today.” He licked his lips. “You look right fine in that suit, Omega, right fine.”

Sherlock now felt beyond dirty; he felt violated. Never before, in his entire life, had he ever been reduced to just one word: Omega. When people talked about him, they usually had a lot to say—argumentative, annoying, nerd, intelligent, persistent, curious—and he had never before felt like his subgender, Omega, was really a part of his personal identity. Sure, he was an Omega. It wasn’t a secret. Sure, maybe he didn’t act like a stereotypical Omega boy, but that wasn’t because he doing it on purpose, or out of defiance: Sherlock just wasn’t a very stereotypical _anything_.

His bright jewel-blue wetsuit, which only a minute ago had been perfectly adequate for his needs, now felt… _shameful_. He had never before felt ashamed of his body, of what he looked like, and this new sensation made him feel surprisingly ill. He stumbled away from the older man, shocked, and then turned and ran.

The other man followed Sherlock for a bit, but quickly fell behind and then stopped pursuit, clearly more out of shape than the active teen. Sherlock ran at top speed all the way back to his family, not slowing once, even though his lungs were burning. Once there, he dove into the sand behind Mycroft, underneath the umbrella. Mycroft looked disgruntled at getting sand on his socks, but then immediately concerned after he saw Sherlock’s face.

“Sherlock, what happened?” He asked. Sherlock shook his head, and turned his face away, hiding his head in his arms and curling in on himself. For some reason, the idea of Mycroft looking at him seemed… almost unbearable right now. As if he weren’t worthy of being looked at.

Mycroft was silent for a few moments. Then he said, “Okay,” very softly, and put his hand on Sherlock’s tousled brown curls. He didn’t pet him, he just… rested it there. At first, Sherlock’s stomach clenched at the touch, but after a while the muscle very slowly relaxed again. Mycroft left his hand there after Sherlock was no longer tense. Somehow, it felt protective, like he didn’t have to worry about that man anymore, because he had Mycroft in front of him.

…………………………………………………………………………

 

For the next few years, Sherlock did his best to hide his body behind baggy clothing. Eventually in his early twenties, he discovered that a well-tailored suit did wonders for minimising his butt and making his torso look broader. His naturally lean build helped to further androgenize him. 

It took him years to be able to go back to the beach. When he did, he did not wear a wetsuit, just his clothes.

Eventually, he got mad at not being able to swim, and decided that he needed to face his fears head-on.  Okay, so some creep looked at him funny a decade ago. He wasn’t going to let that memory control the rest of his life. He purchased a plain, black unisex surfing wetsuit with long legs, long sleeves, and a high collar. When he wore it in the swim area, no one looked at him twice.

Sherlock was satisfied.

 

………………………………………………….

When Mycroft received the photos of Sherlock swimming in the ocean taken by his covert surveillance team, he smiled faintly and took a content sip of tea. 

He fondly remembered Mr Akerland of Sussex. How he had tracked the man down; the expression on the man’s face when he realised that Mycroft knew what he had done; when he realised that Mycroft was the boy’s older brother; when he realised that he was being expatriated to Siberia.

Yes, that was a good day. The very first time he had ever had the satisfaction of waving at a goon and saying the words, “Take care of him.”

Sherlock was hardly the man’s first victim, and the man had gone farther with his previous assaults, but Sherlock was definitely the last. No one hurt his little brother and got away with it.

………………………………………………………………

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep trying to insert the pictures of the bathing suits, and they keep coming back as broken links. Any suggestions on how to work around this?


	6. Present Day

………………………………………………………………

 

John’s footsteps coming up the stairs were heavier than usual. They seemed slower, almost weighed down, and John’s movements of hanging up his coat were subdued.

Argument with Sarah? No, that wouldn’t make John sad, that would make him angry. His movements would be feisty. Something that happened on his way home from work? Possible, but more likely an issue with a patient. John cared about his patients.

“I’m sure they’ll be all right,” Sherlock reassured John. The doctor paused where he was puttering by the fireplace. “Who?” He seemed confused.  “Your patient,” Sherlock explained slowly. John seemed confounded.

“How on earth did you—no, you know what? Never mind. I don’t know why I’m still surprised by this. And, honestly, I hope you are right, Sherlock.”  His voice was tinged with sadness at this last statement. He seemed depressed.

Sherlock turned away from his microscope, more towards John. He had read in a book that showing open body language encouraged people to talk more. It worked; John plopped down in his chair with a huff and continued speaking.

“Young man. Assaulted by an older man, currently in jail, thank God. The boy’s bruises will heal, but the psychological wounds are never that easy, are they?”

Ah. John’s protective instincts had been roused. “I’m sure the Omega boy has a good chance at recovering,” Sherlock replied. John appeared impressed again. “How did you know the boy was an Omega?” he asked. Sherlock sighed. “Statistically likely, John.  90% of sexual assault towards males is directed at Omegas.”

His words made a dark cloud pass over John’s face. “Right,” he said bitterly. “Of course. Some of the most precious members of our society, let’s just go and beat them up, right?” he sounded disgusted. Sherlock was intrigued. “Most precious?” he queried. He had never really heard John talk about Omegas before. He had assumed John was uninterested, since he only dated Beta women.

“Of course they are precious, Sherlock!” John seemed to have taken his innocent question as a negative attack. “Everyone who is capable of bearing new life into this world is precious. They’re so rare; only one out of every one hundred people…”

“And meanwhile, Alphas are born at a rate of one in seventy-five,” Sherlock replied, quoting the familiar statistic. John appeared enraged by this, for some reason. “Sherlock, I don’t care about them just because I’m an Alpha,” he snapped. “They are so biologically unique. I’d think that you, of all people, could at least appreciate their incredibly delicate physiology. The way their bodies are put together, it’s just… unreal.”

Sherlock stared at John, at the almost longing expression on his face. “You… find Omegas attractive?” he ventured. John looked up. “Yeah. Why? Is that so hard to believe? I’m an Alpha, like you said. I’m basically hard-wired to it.”

“I just… thought you were interested in Betas,” Sherlock said neutrally. John bristled. “And what’s wrong with that, eh? You think it’s wrong for an Alpha to be with a Beta?”

“I never said that,” Sherlock replied, placating. John stared for a moment, then visibly deflated. “I’m sorry, Sherlock,” he mumbled, wiping his hand over his face. “You’re right, you weren’t saying anything bad. I just overreacted. It’s been a bad day, and I’m on-edge.”

“You never let me finish my thought earlier,” Sherlock remarked mildly. John stared at him, waiting. Sherlock smiled. “He may have been hurt by an Alpha, John, but he was also healed by one. You showed him that Alphas are capable of kindness, and that the one who attacked him was an aberration from the norm. And that he isn’t unworthy of kindness from Alphas.”

John stared at him, stunned, for several minutes. Then, his expression melted. He looked so happy, and so relieved, and so admiring of Sherlock that the detective just wanted to bask in it.

“Sherlock,” John rasped, choked, and then cleared his throat. “Hm. Sherlock. That was… that was very good. What you said. That was… good.”

Sherlock grinned a goofy smile, and to cover it up, turned back to his microscope.

“By the way. What you said. How did you… know… about how attack victims think?”

Sherlock froze. “Research for a case,” he mumbled, and heard John ‘Ahh’-ing from the sitting room.

This changed everything. Sherlock had never revealed his true gender to John, because he had assumed that it simply wouldn’t matter; there could never be anything between them. But now…

Now, there could be something. It wasn’t that John disliked Omegas; it was that he was open to the idea of dating Betas, and due to their prevalence in numbers over Omegas, had had more opportunity for dates with them.  If Sherlock were to admit his true gender, John wouldn’t be disgusted by him and his non-Beta body.

But how to do it? He had been living under the assumption, for the past 10 months, that Sherlock was a Beta man. To find out that this assumption was wrong would probably upset John, at least at first. Sherlock should try to minimise that upset—the more favourable John’s impression of him, the more open he would be to dates. But what on earth could Sherlock do to warm John up to the idea? Interpersonal relations were Sherlock’s weak area.

He’d think about it for a while. He’d surely come up with something.

…………………………………………………………………………….

 

Sherlock decided to waste no time, and since the following day was one of John’s days off, he decided it was the perfect opportunity. After some online research, he decided that the best way to get a positive reception from John was to butter him up as much as possible. He had heard that Omegas were able to produce certain pheromones when they were actively flirting with an Alpha, trying to purposefully entice a potential mate.  He had researched all through the night for the various physical cues an Omega might make to an Alpha, and had practiced the gestures and facial expressions in his room. With these movements in front of John, the man he was sexually attracted to, he was sure he might be able to produce some pheromones to relax the doctor.

“John, there is something very pressing which must be discussed,” he growled at his flatmate over breakfast. He used the tone and pitch that never failed to make John’s eyes dilate. And—ah, there they were.

“Oh?”

John’s voice was raspy, and he seemed unable to look away from Sherlock’s eyes for a moment. Sherlock had been told as a child that his eyes were ‘really freaky’, but John liked them, so clearly his childhood tormentors had been wrong.

“Yes,” he purred, stroking his teacup. John swallowed hard.

“It is something that should have been said a long time ago, John,” John loved it when Sherlock said his name (he saw the blonde man shiver a little), “and is quite frankly overdue. You may have some idea what I am referring to.”

John was staring at his eyes as though hypnotised. His teacup had been sitting just below his lip, motionless, for the past two minutes.  Sherlock decided to continue.

“In truth, John, this is something about… us.”

“Us?”

John’s voice was so hoarse it sounded like he was choking. His pupils had dilated to nearly black.

“Yes, John, us. And our… partnership.”

“Our partnership,” John repeated inanely. He seemed to no longer be in control of his faculties.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied, leaning forwards a little in his chair. “You have been living here in Baker Street for some time. Almost a year, in fact.”

John nodded. His teacup was still suspended in mid-air.

This was going very well; Sherlock’s research on Omega seduction techniques had paid off. He looked up through his lashes as best he could at the shorter man, keeping his head bowed, trying to think sultry thoughts. John looked like he might spontaneously combust.

“I’ll admit, John, you have surprised me. I have never had a roommate be able to tolerate me for longer than a week. And yet, here you still are.”

John nodded. Sherlock suspected he may not be capable of speaking anymore. The sultry look aimed at his partner of choice must be working: he must be releasing some amount of relaxing pheromones!

“In fact, John, you have surprised me in a lot of ways. I find myself… thinking about… inviting you to a certain function.”

John didn’t nod. His neck muscles may have become paralysed.

“Well, you see, John, there is an event coming up. About two months from now. And I’m thinking that I might like to invite you. But I’d like to get to know you first. Sort of… see if you would be the right… man I’d like by my side.”

John’s eyes may have been about to pop out of his head, but we’ll never know, because that was when Sherlock’s mobile rang.

“Damnit!!” Sherlock screamed, leaping out of his chair and ripping the phone out of his bathrobe pocket. “Hallo??” he screeched irritably into the mobile.

“Hi Sherlock,” Lestrade’s voice came from the speaker, “Sorry if this is a bad time, but I could really use your help. You remember the missing blonde Omegas I mentioned at the warehouse yesterday?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said curtly, much less irritated than when he had first picked up the phone. If this was interesting, then it might make up for ruining his attempts to reveal his true gender to John.

“Yeah, well, we’ve found evidence of one—a discarded shoe belonging to a missing boy was discovered on the outskirts of town. It was called in this morning. There’s a really foul smell around, similar to the warehouse, but we haven’t been able to find a body. Could you come and take a look?”

Sherlock stilled, then took a sharp breath through his nose. A serial killer!

“I see,” he murmured, drolly. “Well, give me the address, at least. If it’s lower than a 5, though, we might leave.”

Lestrade agreed, and gave the address, knowing that Sherlock preferred to ride in taxi cabs than cop cars. Although he didn’t know the reason why.

Immediately after hanging up, Sherlock rubbed his hands together and cackled gleefully, leaping about the kitchen. “Yes! Yes, John! This might even be a 7 or an 8! A potential serial killer, oh, I knew there was something about that first crime scene, I just knew it. Get dressed, John!  We leave immediately!”

When Sherlock ran back into the living room five minutes later, fully clothed in his usual suit and aubergine shirt, John was also in the living room. He appeared to have attempted to dress himself, but very poorly. His socks were mismatched, the buttons on his shirt were misaligned by one button, and he was attempting to put his feet into the opposite shoes.

“No, no, John, that goes on your right foot! What are you doing?” Irritated at his bizarre behaviour, Sherlock bent down and removed John’s left foot, then shoved the shoe onto the right foot. The blonde doctor just stared at his feet as if he had never seen such contraptions before.

“Oh for God’s sakes,” Sherlock hissed, when nothing had been done after his own shoes were properly tied up. He angrily tied John’s shoes for him, then put his coat on him, then herded him down the stairs and out the front door.

…………………………………………………

 

Twenty minutes later, Sherlock stepped out of the cab and into a very familiar smell. He was nearly knocked back by it, and not because of the reasons everyone else was. No. No, this triggered a memory.

_Sulphur… why is that important?_

He threw a few crumpled-up bills at the taxi driver, since John wasn’t capable of it, and rushed forward. They appeared to be outside of an abandoned greenhouse at the edge of the city, and Sherlock was making a beeline for that smell.

_Where was it originating from?_ He began running from tank to tank along the side of the building, sniffing the outside of the containers. While he was attempting to narrow down the source, he heard Lestrade talking behind him.

“Well, John, it’s good to see you two so soon. I didn’t think he’d pass it up, though, he sounded pretty eager on the phone. Well, you know, as eager as he ever gets. John? John??”

It seemed to take John a while to respond. “Greg,” he croaked, as though he had a head cold.

“Jesus Christ, mate, what happened to you? You sound… eh…”

“Greg, I think Sherlock was coming onto me.”

There were a few moments of silence, broken only by Sherlock rummaging through bins.

“Uh, Sherlock? That Sherlock?”

There was a silence. Sherlock assumed that Lestrade was pointing at him, which would be a bit difficult, since only his shoes were now visible to the two. He had crawled underneath a table to examine a bucket.

“Yeah,” John’s voice sounded reverent.

“Look, I know you’ve been hung up on this guy since forever, but… are you sure you weren’t…. misinterpreting the conversation?”

“I didn’t misinterpret it,” John sounded slightly irritated. “There was no mistaking it. He wants me to go to a… a party, or something. It was clear, Greg.”

“Ok,” Lestrade sounded sceptical. “Just… I’ve never known Sherlock to go to parties. He says they’re tedious.”

“I know what I heard!” John sounded irritated now. “I don’t know what changed, why he’s suddenly interested in dating where previously, he made it clear that he wasn’t. But there’s definitely a change.”

“All right, John. And you’re sure that you… are okay with… dating a Beta man? I mean, with all the… physiological differences?”

“Oh shut it, Greg,” John sounded resigned. “You know I’ve wanted this for months. Penetrative sex doesn’t matter. As long as I just get to be with him, then I’m happy.”

This extremely awkward conversation never would have happened if Greg hadn’t interrupted his conversation this morning!  They both had it all wrong. Sure, John might be too large to have sex with a beta man, but that wasn’t—

He stopped, mid-thought. There. Right there. He shot out from under the table, running for a back door to the greenhouse. He heard footsteps following behind him; presumably Greg and John. He attempted to open it, but it was locked.

“It’s ok, Sherlock, I’ll call the crew over to come and open it for you. Just keep your hair on.”

“No time!” Sherlock barked at the DI, and whipped out a set of lock picks. Lestrade sighed and wiped his hand over his face. “I’m just going to pretend I didn’t see that,” he muttered while Sherlock opened the door. Then, all three of them staggered for a moment from the stench that emanated outward from the doorway.

“Oh, Jesus,” Lestrade muttered, covering up his mouth and nose with a handkerchief. “What the bloody hell is that smell?”

Eyes watering, Sherlock attempted to peer through the darkness of the greenhouse storeroom, coughing at intervals. Even though he already knew what he would see, he flicked the light switch on anyways.

John and Lestrade both blinked furiously, looking confused.

“But there’s nothing in here,” Lestrade muttered.

…………………………………………………………………………..


	7. Present Day, Pt 3: A Reconstructed Swamp

…………………………………………………………………………..

Sometimes, Sherlock wondered why the hell he even bothered associating with these peons.

Lestrade, a seasoned DI, looking into a greenhouse supply room and seeing ‘nothing’. Was he drunk on the job? It seemed best to leave the crime scene as soon as possible, before he was tempted to bash his head against a wall in frustration. If only Lestrade hadn’t had that stupid policy about him not getting high at a crime scene, he would be able to stay…

“Ok, Sherlock, just calm down,” John said, seeming to realise that Sherlock was reaching the end of his rope. “Talk me through it.”

John. He could talk to John. Just focus on John, push the others away. “This is where the body is stored,” Sherlock intoned, walking slowly around the low, flat palette containing a simulated swamp. “He wanted the body to be decomposed in a swamp. There are no swamps in the inner city; he had to create one himself, probably because he wasn’t able to take a trip north to the real thing.”

“A swamp?” Lestrade asked, both he and John looking around.

“Yes, yes, the swamp,” Sherlock growled, losing his grip. “ _This_ swamp, Lestrade, the one that you’re standing in front of,” he picked up a plant out of the low, flat wooden planter to reveal the deep muddy water underneath. “These are all swamp plants. If you were to test it, you would find that this water is comparable to the average swamp of northern UK. The smell of sulphur is unmistakable.”

He began chucking plants to the side, with Lestrade grumbling about crime scene preservation, but silence fell when he moved a plant and the space was filled with long, blonde strands floating up from the bottom of the palette. The body was definitely in the water.

“Don’t—just don’t take it out, yet,” Lestrade said wearily. “We need the forensics crew in here, before we can extract the body. Jesus.”

“Doesn’t, ah, peat slow down decomposition?” John asked, looking at the plants blearily. Thank God, a coherent question. “Yes, it does,” Sherlock replied, immensely pleased with his John. 

“That doesn’t make any sense, Sherlock,” Lestrade replied. “Why on earth would a serial killer want a dead body to decompose more slowly?”

“Yes!” Sherlock shouted, throwing his hands up. “Thank you! Now you are starting to ask the right questions, Lestrade! Why would someone, who has killed another person, want to keep the body around as long as possible?”

He was met by blank faces. “There could be a lot of reasons,” John ventured. Sherlock spun on his heel. “Exactly, John! We must narrow down the variables! To the morgue!”

Lestrade looked on, resigned, as Sherlock rushed off to the taxi, and John eagerly ran after him. They had both clearly forgotten his existence, too wrapped up in the chase and each other.

The silver-haired Beta man looked down at the makeshift swamp at his feet, and picked up his radio to let Forensics know that they had found the Missing Person’s body.

…………………………………………………………………………….

 

John felt like he was in heaven.

Next to him in the cab, Sherlock was rattling off sentences at top speed, happy as a clam.  He had never seemed so beautiful.

John was transfixed by the way the sunlight caught off of his long, glossy curls; at first glance, his hair appeared to be black, but it was actually a very dark brown. His mercurial eyes appeared green today. John wondered if it was merely the sunlight, or if it was Sherlock’s happiness that made them that colour. Sometimes, when the detective was depressed, his eyes would appear as a nearly-colourless grey.

That morning, when Sherlock had appeared before him in HD Technicolor, his eyes had appeared bright blue. John had never seen them blue before. He could barely even remember what Sherlock had been talking about; all he remembered was his feline face, his form gracefully perched over the kitchen chair, a glint of a pale collarbone where his t-shirt slouched. He had wanted to lick that collarbone. He still wanted to lick that collarbone.

He wasn’t sure whether to kiss Greg for calling at that moment, or punch him in the face. He had been so dazed from Sherlock’s unbelievable sexual pull that it took him about thirty minutes to become coherent again. He definitely wanted to deck him for implying that Sherlock wasn’t interested. Because Sherlock had _definitely_ been interested, he was sure of it. Even if he wasn’t sure what Sherlock had been trying to say, he knew without a doubt that Sherlock _wanted_ him. He was pretty sure that, if that homeless man hadn’t found the shoe this morning, he would be in the process of getting a leg over on Sherlock right now.

“…and that, John, is—John! Are you listening?”

John came to and realised that he hadn’t heard a word Sherlock had said, had merely been staring at his handsome angular face. A face which was now frowning at him.

“Never mind,” Sherlock groused, clearly put out. “We’re at the morgue, anyway. Let’s go look at the first corpse they recovered, John.”

……………………………………………………………


	8. Backstory: Age 27

……………………………………………………………

 

When Sherlock had been twenty-seven, his family had taken another trip north to visit his grandparents. He planned on going up the entire time with his parents, but Mycroft had said that due to work obligations, he would only be able to visit for a few days before leaving again. His parents were sad about this, but understanding, because he had such an important job with the government, and they were so proud of him.

When Sherlock had arrived, his mother had been so happy to see him, and had run up to him and patted her hands through his deranged locks, and kissed his cheeks, and been overall very embarrassing.

As much as he hated to admit it, Sherlock was, at some level, pleased to be the little Omega darling of the family. If he hadn’t, he would have felt a lot more pressure to compete with Mycroft.  But instead of asking why he wasn’t in the government like his brother, they just told him how handsome he was; as if that was the most important achievement they cared about, anyways.  Even his stoic grandparents, who had always seemed faintly disapproving of everything, were pleased to have a handsome omega grandchild in their family. It was seen as a mark of honour, after all, or perhaps more accurately status, to have an Alpha or an Omega relative.

Because so many Alphas joined the military and the government, they tended to reach very important positions, and thus were regarded highly and with respect. Personally, Sherlock had always thought them a bit of a loose cannon.  With all of those aggressive hormones running around, they also tended to be more likely to be criminals too.

Personally, Sherlock wasn’t totally sure why Omegas were even more coveted than Alphas. Generally, Omegas tended to be creative and artistic; Sherlock was no exception, being rather talented at the violin and acting. However, artsy careers didn’t tend to pay well. The most famous rich Omegas were all models or actors. Some of those used their fame to advocate for charitable causes, but as a whole, it just wasn’t obvious why people were so obsessed with Omegas.

That was the year that Sherlock would find out why.

………………………………………………………………..

 

After his disastrous summer at the beach at sixteen, Sherlock had gone home and researched as much as he could about crime statistics involving Alphas and Omegas. To his dismay, he found that while the number of Betas in prison far outweighed Alphas, in terms of statistics, a greater percentage of the Alpha population ended up as criminals than Betas.

The general consensus amongst researchers seemed to be that it was due to the aggressive nature of Alpha hormones. They were simply biologically set up to be ticking time bombs. Useful, perhaps, in caveman days—but a disadvantage in civilised modern times.

But even worse than this were the statistics regarding Omegas. They were, unequivocally, the most preyed-upon social group in every country in the world. The attacks against Omegas varied a lot, but most attacks either had a sexual component, or were sexually motivated.

Sherlock was floored. His scary beach encounter was by no means an isolated incident, and in fact, he had gotten lucky—the man never physically touched him. 

It made no sense. Aside from a small amount of fat padding his butt and lack of body hair, Sherlock looked just like other Beta men. Why on earth would that be enough to drive people crazy? He didn’t really feel different at all to when he thought he was a Beta, and when everybody had treated him like one. So what was the big deal? Was he doomed to be a target the rest of his life, simply because of his secondary gender—an element completely beyond his control?

That was the year that Sherlock became interested in crime… the beginning of a new era for the youngest Holmes.

…………………………………………………………

 

Ever since then, Sherlock had been cautious. He was less likely to approach strangers now, and more likely to believe that others might cause him harm. He hated it. He wished that he could walk outside at night without fear of being attacked, but he didn’t see a way around it. There were a couple of times that he thought he felt eyes on him as he walked about, and would quickly duck inside a shop and then out the shop’s back door, making zig-zags through London as he had made zig-zags through the sports field so long ago. He always lost his pursuers.  He never thought about what would happen if he didn’t.

Now, in his twenty-seventh  year, Sherlock decided to go out for a stroll in the natural area by his grandparents’ house. They had said that it was beautiful, with a lot of interesting animals, and he thought he would quite like to add to his water sample collection—and that natural area had a swamp.

So, he set out on a brisk fall morning, wearing his customary Belstaff and scarf. There were no other people about, so Sherlock didn’t feel in any danger. He took deep breaths as he walked, enjoying first the crisp clean air, and then the faint sulphur smell as he got closer to the bog.

There were trees at the edges of the wetland area, and they were changing colours for autumn, sending beautiful orange, red, and yellow leaves everywhere. It lifted Sherlock’s spirits to see the leaves contrasted with the bright blue sky; _really, there was no better time of year_ , he thought to himself.

And that was when he saw the shoe.

It was a man’s shoe, lying haphazardly in the middle of the path. Sherlock stared at it, filled with instant terror, because he recognised the brand—it was a brand marketed towards Omegas.

The runner’s sneaker was several happy jewel colours, purple and turquoise, just like those damn pamphlets. It had been torn off of a man’s foot, the laces were ripped. There was a trail—not visible unless you were looking for it—where grass had been trampled off to the side of the path. Small marks had been made in the ground—the Omega had been dragged, fighting, into the copse of trees.

Sherlock stood very still, and listened. No sound. Judging by the dew cover, this sneaker had been there since last night. He wavered. He made the deduction that whoever the perpetrator was, he was most likely no longer in the area. Sherlock made the decision to follow the trail into the trees.

He knew it was dangerous. He knew that he very well might be attacked too. But he couldn’t, just _couldn’t_ , stand there and do nothing. He also knew that the chances of the poor man still being alive were slim. But, _but_ , if he was still alive, if he was injured and unable to cry out, then Sherlock could help him. He would never be able to live with himself if he didn’t at least try.

Each step the young dark-haired man took filled him with even more terror. He wished he could stop _seeing_ the young man’s struggle playing out in the evidence around him, wanted so _desperately_ to close his eyes and pretend that the drops of blood, torn branches, and gouges in the earth weren’t there, but he couldn’t. He seemed to be pulled forward by some unseen force, unable to stop now that he had decided to walk this path.

Inside the copse of trees, he found the body of the man. He was in his early twenties, a little bit younger than Sherlock. Clearly an avid runner; the muscles told the story, most likely ran the same route regularly. His clothes matched his shoes. He liked to take care of himself; had probably even read those stupid Omega Nutrition handouts.

The perp was familiar with the area; he felt comfortable here. He was a local. He was also an Alpha, and had raped the young man viciously, judging by the… damage. The man had been alive for the rape, but had fought desperately, there were many defensive wounds on his hands and arms. The perp had then stabbed him viciously in the heart. It had been personal; no Alpha would stab a random stranger in the heart, this was an Alpha who had wanted this specific Omega and been rejected. The Alpha would have stalked the Omega first, and then come up with this plan of ambush once he memorised the runner’s path.

Distantly, Sherlock realised that he was in a state of shock, and was focussing on facts to disassociate. Trying to pull himself back together, he pulled out his mobile and dialled 999.

He really didn’t remember what he told the operator, he was too busy staring at the blood and the terrified expression on the dead man’s face. But suddenly there were a whole bunch of police there, and a lot of patrol cars, and someone was putting a blanket around his shoulders and trying to get him to leave the Omega’s side. They kept trying to get him to sit in the back seat, trying to direct him towards the flashing lights and the dark leather interior of the car, and those lights and colours and smells seemed to burn themselves into Sherlock’s brain.

Sherlock didn’t want to leave. “I can’t leave him,” he was trying to tell a female officer, “I can’t leave him alone. Look. He’s scared. We can’t leave him alone.”

Afterwards, Sherlock could never understand why on earth he had thought that it would matter to a dead man whether there was 1 person or a hundred people beside him, let alone a fellow Omega.

He was beyond all caring now.

……………………………………………………….

 

Sherlock felt a deep sense of failure. He felt, irrationally, that he had failed that runner, and that to atone for it, he had to catch the monster that had ended the man’s life.

Unfortunately, the police did not want to listen to him. “Go home, boy,” they would tell him, despite the fact that he was older than some of them. “We understand that you’re upset. But leave this to the professionals, okay?”

No one would _listen_ to him. In frustration, he contacted the man’s family. If Sherlock had been a normal person, he probably wouldn’t have done this, out of respect or a sense of courtesy. Sherlock had neither respect nor a sense of courtesy, so it never occurred to him not to.

The family was, shockingly, grateful to him. They believed—and were probably correct—that if Sherlock hadn’t come along, it could have been months before anybody found their son. But now, even though they were beside themselves with grief, they at least knew where he was. And because he had been found so quickly, the investigators were able to collect a lot of evidence.

“We’re really sure that they’ll catch whoever did this,” the boy’s father choked, rubbing his wife’s shoulder. “They were even able to gather some… DNA evidence. So. They’ll nail whoever the bastard is.”

Sherlock asked for contacts to talk to the Omega’s—Danny Sturgiss’—friends. Even more surprisingly, the Sturgisses gave Sherlock the contact info for Danny’s closest friends.

“I know the police are doing everything,” Mrs. Sturgiss wept quietly, “But... I just want help. I need help. I need to know that everybody is looking for the man who did this to my baby. If you think that you can help me, then I’ll give you anything you think you need.”

It was Sherlock’s big break. A couple of pointed questions to Danny’s friends revealed that he had met an Alpha guy at a bar two weeks prior, and ever since, had felt like he was being stalked. He’d even had his apartment broken into and some personal effects stolen, although he never reported it to the police.

Since the police had clearly showed that they had no interest in talking to a lowly Omega, Sherlock called in the information he’d found out via an anonymous tip line.

Two weeks later, the creep from the bar was arrested and held without bail for first-degree murder. His DNA evidence had, like Mr. Sturgiss said, been all over the crime scene—but since he’d never been picked up for anything before, he wasn’t in the police file. A court-ordered DNA sample proved without a doubt that he was a direct match.

Like many Alphas, Sherlock was to learn, this man had a specific mental pathology—he saw Omegas as objects, specifically sex objects. It was unclear to Sherlock how this pathology came about—was the man mentally ill? Was it a byproduct of the way Omegas were portrayed in the media? What, exactly, caused someone to stop seeing another person as a _person_ , and start seeing them as only a means of receiving sexual gratification?

The man later was found guilty on all charges, and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.

It was Sherlock’s first victory. And once he’d had a taste, he couldn’t get enough.

…………………………………………………………..

 

Sherlock was determined. He had to get into the police force. But, as always, there was a problem.

They wouldn’t accept Omegas.

Sherlock really wasn’t entirely sure what the reasoning behind this was: to him, it stank of sexism. But he was still determined to find a way to do what he loved—if he couldn’t join the official force, then he would become a private detective, and investigate cases separately.

He had a really hard time starting out, though, and most of his family members disapproved of his career choice. They wanted him to continue violin tutoring. “It’s so dangerous,” his mum said over the phone, sounding genuinely scared. “What if you end up just like those Omegas you’re trying to help, son? God, I worry about you all the time as it is.”

“I can’t stop, Mum,” he told her quietly. “I can’t leave them alone. If they weren’t afforded basic dignity in life, then I’ll give it to them in death.”

His secondary gender, though, was going to stop his career before it even started. No one wanted to talk to an Omega; they thought he didn’t know what he was doing.

So, when he heard through the grapevine that a new drug was being approved, he was one of the first in line at his doctor’s office.

“It’s called ‘Solnera’,” Doctor Lutz said, “And it’s a really great breakthrough in Omega health. It’s designed as an oral contraceptive, but it has a lot of other side effects which could be good or bad, depending on your lifestyle.”

“Tell me,” Sherlock demanded.

“Well, for starters, it seems to block production of the AB-2 pheromone,” she explained. She had long ago become resigned to the fact that Sherlock preferred to be told information as scientifically as possible.

The AB-2 pheromone. The pheromone that his body constantly produced, signalling that he was a matured and unbonded Omega. The pheromone that had caused him so much pain in his life, so much fear of being stalked, so many unwanted advances… if this was true, it could change _everything_.

“I want it,” he said softly.

“Ok. I just want to explain this to you in more detail first, Sherlock. I know you like to fly off; you’re so impatient,” his doctor laughed. Sherlock glared. “In practical application, what this means is that you will smell ‘neutral’ to Alphas; you will appear to smell as a Beta,” Dr. Lutz explained. “However, this pill will not change your physical appearance. You will still have the hairlessness, more compact muscle mass, and body shape associated with Omegas. Once a year, you will need to stop taking the pill, and allow your body to go through 1 heat cycle normally. Then you can start taking it again. It should minimise the cramping and mood swings preceding that heat, though, and it will most likely last for only 1 day instead of your usual 2. While you are taking this pill, if you engage in intercourse, it will prevent a zygote from implanting.”

“I understand,” Sherlock said lowly.

For years, he had been downplaying his body shape as much as possible; washing with gender-neutral soaps and hygiene products; kept his hair cut longer than most Betas, but shorter than most Omegas; avoided the bright, happy colours and sparkles favoured by so many Beta women and Omegas.

What he was about to do was to take the next step. This wasn’t some superficial cosmetic change; this was an actual chemical, biological change into becoming more androgynous. Oh, it was definitely reversible—all he had to do was stop taking the pill, and he’d be right back to where he was, but it was still a step further than he had ever gone before.

He didn’t hate being an Omega. He didn’t dislike his body shape, or his hairlessness, or even the gender stereotypes that didn’t fit him. At one point in time, after being recently diagnosed, Sherlock had felt very disconnected from his body, and like it was a mistake. He didn’t feel that way anymore. He was exactly the way he was supposed to be.

But the cold, hard fact remained that being perceived as an Omega by others was preventing him from living the life he dreamed of. He reasoned with himself: he wasn’t _actually_ changing himself, just the way that other people saw him, that was all. He was still Sherlock, through and through.

He walked out of the chemist’s that day with a bottle that would change everything.

……………………………………………………………


	9. Present Day, Pt 4: The Morgue

……………………………………………………………

 

John watched as Sherlock stalked his way around the body of the first victim laid out on the slab, like a panther stalking its prey.  Every so often he would dart in suddenly to a specific area, magnifying lens extended to get a closer look.

John wondered what Sherlock was seeing. As always, he tried himself to observe. The boy on the slab appeared to be in his early-to mid-twenties; it was hard to tell with the decomp, but strangulation marks were visible on his neck. His shoulder-length blonde hair was wet and tangled now, but would have been straight and fine if it were dry. So far, he seemed to match the second victim very well physically—at least, from what John had been able to see of him in the water. It would seem that this serial killer definitely had a specific ‘type’.

John rubbed a hand through his military-short hair a bit self-consciously. What was it about blondeness that seemed to denote delicacy? He had struggled with that bit his whole life—the stereotypes, that is. As an Alpha, he was supposed to be large—but instead, he was shorter than even the average Beta man. He was supposed to be the very picture of ruggedness, dark and brooding—but instead, he was blonde and blue-eyed, with a cheerful disposition. As far as Alpha stereotypes went, he was a bit of a disappointment. Even his army career, possibly the most stereotypically Alpha thing about him (other than his love of rugby), was cut short after his injury.

Well, fuck all of them. They didn’t know him. Besides, he had Sherlock to fill the tall, dark and brooding role; what would it look like if they were both that way?

Sherlock. Yesterday, he would have said that the Beta wasn’t interested in dating anyone, Betas or Alphas. So he kept his infatuation to himself, although he was sure that Sherlock must have known about his feelings. He saw everything, after all.

That morning’s events had made John re-evaluate what he thought he knew. Sherlock was interested in him-- John Watson, soldier and surgeon and Alpha, with all of his foibles and flaws alike—and John wasn’t about to let him go.

A sudden movement from Sherlock’s dramatic coat pulled John back to the present. Right. The body.

Ok, so the perp had liked blonde Omegas at their sexual prime—him and about half the rest of the country, too—and hadn’t wanted the bodies to decompose quickly. Had he wanted to preserve the bodies, somehow? But wouldn’t it be easier to preserve a body in a dry environment as opposed to a wet one?

John realised that Sherlock was staring at him, eyes intense. “Yes, John,” he said lowly, “You’re on the right track. Now. Look at the body. How is this body different from other bodies we’ve seen before?”

John looked down, licking his lips. “Well, um, the perp definitely seems to have a specific type,” he said, and Sherlock nodded. “And, um, the body is still clothed.”

Sherlock blinked slowly, like a cat. “Yes. What kind of clothes, John?”

The sound of that deep smooth voice saying his name never failed to get John a little bit hard. “Er, well, he’s wearing an Omega swim suit,” he rasped, trying to loosen his collar. Sherlock smiled a little bit. Beautiful.

“And what was the second victim wearing, John?”

John looked back at the body, thinking back to the blonde boy concealed beneath the peat. Wait…  “He was wearing a swimsuit. The exact same swimsuit,” he finished excitedly, “Exactly the same!”

Sherlock whirled around, making his coat flare dramatically. That was the cue for the deductions to begin.

“ _Exactly_ the same swimsuit, John. The same brand, the same colour, the same size. A brand-new swimsuit, bought specifically for the men.”

It wasn’t often that John heard Omegas referred to as men, so he was a little bit surprised, and he belatedly felt ashamed at himself for thinking this thought. Of course they were men. They had penises, and hard flat chests, and essentially the same body shape too, although the media tended to play up their slight curves a lot. The real differences between Omegas and Beta men were internal; the Omega had the ability to become pregnant, where Beta men could not.

It had been hypothesised that Omegas were a kind of extreme survival mechanism for their species; after a great catastrophe, such as a natural disaster, having men able to conceive the same as women would have been a great advantage at building up their dwindling numbers. The argument scientists fought over the most nowadays was a chicken-and-egg question: which had come first, the Alpha or the Omega?

Alphas were able to have children with both Omegas and women, but Omegas could only become impregnated by an Alpha. Whether or not they could procreate with a Beta woman was unknown: to John’s knowledge, no Omega had ever been attracted enough to a woman to find out. They seemed to exclusively be attracted to men, either Beta or Alpha, although Omega and Beta male relations were seen as a bit taboo by British society. John thought that was all bit rubbish. He himself had never been fortunate enough to meet a (living) Omega, but he thought that if he did, he wouldn’t mind dating one. Or, at least, he would have done before he had met Sherlock.  He might have met an Omega, if his family had been more affluent. He had even studied up a bit on flirting techniques—the magazines he had read seemed to indicate that much of it would come naturally to him. Things like offering food and shelter, offering his protection—trying to see to as many of the Omega’s needs as possible. It seemed that caring for Omegas was an instinct deeply ingrained in Alphas.

He had heard from his Alpha mates in the army that there was nothing else on earth, nothing, like being with an Omega in heat. That it put a man into frenzy; that it satisfied something deep within, something primal, that being with a woman just couldn’t touch. John had asked what it felt like to have a knot, to have it… inside, and his mates hadn’t been able to answer, but their faces had said it all.

Were Omegas designed to be the ultimate companion to society’s ever-so-valuable Alphas? John thought that was a bit conceited. It was more likely that the two had evolved in tandem with each other, Alphas able to expand the tribe’s territory and defeat others in battle, and Omegas able to multi-task, either filling the role of protector or procreator as the population distribution in their tribe dictated.

Looking down at the blonde boy—man—now, John wished that he had gotten the chance to know him when he was alive.

“Both of these men were frequent swimmers, John, you can see it in their muscle definition and feet. But these were not their regular suits. The perpetrator bought them for his victims beforehand, had to find an Omega to fit the suit, not the other way around.

“It’s a very specific fantasy. Something happened to this man in his past, involving a blonde omega in a swimsuit. It would have most likely been his first sexual encounter. He’s now trying to re-live that fantasy over and over, finding Omegas that most closely resemble the man in his memory. He wants to preserve them, but the fantasy isn’t complete without the water.

“This man placed his first victim inside the water cistern at the abandoned warehouse, but the body decayed too quickly, and he abandoned it. And his artificially created bog at the derelict greenhouse has been discovered and is now out of reach, so he’s had to create a second one. And now, he needs to fill it. Which means that he will be hunting.”

John felt adrenaline rush through his body, making the hairs on his arms stand on end. Hunting? He was ready to do a little hunting of his own. “So, where do we go, then?” he asked.

Sherlock grinned.

“Let’s check out… South London YMCA,” he replied, holding up the business card he had found fallen underneath the table next to the greenhouse.

……………………………………………….

 

Sherlock was pleased beyond all measure.  This case was shaping up rather nicely; although he had suspected that the first body in the water was merely a test run, and that there may be a second body, he was now fully confident that they would be able to prevent a third.

John was ready. He felt like a hunter with a beloved hound by his side; he could feel John’s whole body thrumming with energy, his stride quick and confident, nose in the air, ready for a chase. Ready for Sherlock to tell him where the fight was.

Unfortunately, the YMCA was currently closed, due to the hour of night. “We’ll have to go there first thing tomorrow morning,” Sherlock announced, and John nodded tightly. “Contact Lestrade. He likes you more than me. See if you can get a body ID out of him, maybe a photo of the victims as they were when they were alive—we need to ask around that gym, see when they were last spotted there. A photo to show would be helpful.”

John nodded. Whereas Sherlock was perfectly fine with winging it, John liked clear direction and a sense of purpose. He immediately got out his mobile and rang Lestrade, and went out into the hallway to talk to him. Sherlock went back to inspecting the body.

The skin on the man’s feet was peeling quite profusely, and definitely before he had been placed in the makeshift bog. Common amongst swimmers. He had a certain discolouration around his eyes, indicative of tight goggles being taken off and on.  Sherlock imagined the Omega swimming, his long blonde hair streaming behind him in the way most commonly portrayed as sexual by the media. He could imagine a dark, faceless Alpha, stroking the dead man’s long hair in the water, making it swirl just as it had in life. He shuddered almost violently.

Just then, John emerged from the hallway, his calm face belying the excitement in his body movements. Good old John. Steady John. Always there, always supporting Sherlock, no matter how crazy his schemes. Sherlock felt calmer just having the shorter man in his sights. Would John still be so ready to take directions when he knew Sherlock was an Omega?

“Greg says there isn’t an ID yet on the bodies,” John said, walking back into the room and closing the door. “There’s no match in the system for DNA or fingerprints, so they haven’t been picked up by the police before,” he said. “Right now they’re cross-checking a facial recognition program with missing persons reports. They have a couple of possibilities but nothing definite.”

Sherlock nodded absently, he had suspected as much. “Good work, John. We’ve gotten all we can here at the morgue. Fancy some Chinese?”

John grinned wolfishly. “From that place around the corner on Marylebone, right?” he replied, keeping time with Sherlock out of the building, a definite spring in his step.

………………………………………………………………….

 

Dinner had been quite enjoyable. Sherlock had decided to employ some of his newly learned flirting techniques, bumping knees with John under the table, and brushing his hand when he passed him silverware or a fortune cookie. John had appeared to quite enjoy this attention, judging by the spots of red colour on his cheeks and the tips of his ears. He was grinning broadly as they headed back to Baker Street, bumping against Sherlock’s arm occasionally, causing Sherlock to be in very high spirits. All he had to do now was tell John the truth while he was still in a good mood, and releasing the highest amount of pheromones possible.

Once they were inside their cosy flat, Sherlock ushered John to sit next to him on the couch. After John was seated, Sherlock scooted a bit closer so that their legs were brushing, which caused John to grin broadly again. Good, his buttering-up was going as planned. According to his research, Alphas didn’t much like head games or subtle flirting techniques. The best plan was to be as straightforward as possible, and to spell everything out.

“I enjoyed eating dinner with you, John,” Sherlock said, even though it had been obvious that he had enjoyed himself. John giggled, and sounded rather pleased. Perhaps it was good for him to spell out obvious things sometimes, this really seemed to be working!

“I enjoyed eating with you too, Sherlock,” John replied. Sherlock already knew this of course, but strangely, something inside of him liked hearing the words. Was that how it felt for John, too?

“John, as I said earlier, there is something which needs to be discussed,” Sherlock rumbled, leaning in close to John’s shoulder. He saw a shiver go down the doctor’s back. Abruptly, John leaned back a little bit.

“There’s something I want to try, Sherlock. Turn around. Turn your back to me. Come on.”

“John, I’m serious, there’s really something—“

“Ah ah ah! No talking! Here now. How’s this?”

John was rubbing his shoulders—oh, fuck. That was amazing. Why in the name of God had he not known of John’s talent with massage? Where had he been keeping this hidden? How dare John try to hide something from him—Sherlock lost his train of thought, all of the knots he didn’t know he had being worked out by John’s strong thumbs. Mmm.

………………………………………………

 

John smiled in satisfaction, looking at the faintly snoring detective beneath him. He could tell that Sherlock was tired, running on full tilt since this case began. He had surreptitiously passed more vegetables and meat onto Sherlock’s plate during dinner, since they had more nutrition than the noodles, and to his gratification Sherlock had eaten them.

He had hoped that he would be able to lull Sherlock to sleep with a relaxing massage to work out his kinks (cramped up in front of a microscope all last night), and his plan had worked. After all of the tension in his shoulders had been released, Sherlock had simply slumped forwards, unconscious.

Now, John covered him tenderly with a blanket, making sure he wouldn’t get cold, and maneuvered a pillow under his head. He patted the downy curls gently with his hand, and Sherlock snorted in his sleep.

John tiptoed up the stairs to his room, fondly looking back a couple of times to see the sleeping form on the couch.

Sherlock would be furious in the morning, but eventually, John would be forgiven.

…………………………………………………………..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 6/19/17: fixed minor typos.


	10. Present Day, Pt 5: Let's go swimming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nothing about the South London YMCA. I have taken many, many artistic liberties. All of the 'facts' about this facility are completely made up.

…………………………………………………………..

 

Sherlock was furious.

He had been manipulated, toyed with, tricked—how dare John! He had been planning on staying up last night analysing more water samples, but now all of that was dashed!

He furiously stomped through the flat, banging cupboards together as he made tea. That bastard. Sherlock would only make tea for one, The Bastard could fend for himself. While it was steeping, he stomped into the bathroom and took a quick shower. He still took the time to rake some mousse through his hair afterwards, though. He never skipped that part of his routine.  It’s best not to dwell on what his hair looked like before he discovered styling product.

The Bastard was in the kitchen, cheerfully making his own tea. He didn’t even seem put out that Sherlock had purposefully excluded him. The Bastard even had the nerve to chuckle at him as he skipped off to the bathroom for his own shower! Sherlock grit his teeth as he drank his own cup, which was now just the right temperature, but somehow The Bastard’s happiness made it taste bitter.

The Bastard then tried to cajole him into eating a slice of toast, which Sherlock patently refused. The Bastard’s good mood dampened somewhat, but he still seemed in high spirits as they took a cab to the YMCA. Sherlock turned his head to look out the window and refused to speak to him.

Once at the gym, Sherlock rushed into the building, leaving The Bastard to pay the cabbie and stumble after him. Serves him right. Sherlock went immediately to the lady at the reception desk, smiling brightly and turning the charm on full blast.

“Hi,” he said, leaning forward. She smiled back at him, obviously bored and glad for a diversion. “I’m interested in obtaining a gym membership. Can you tell me a little bit more about the services you offer here?”

The petite brunette was obliging, bringing out pamphlets (more goddamn pamphlets!) and verbally explaining that their gym had indoor basketball courts, nautilus machines, free weight lifting, a yoga studio, a 50-metre swimming pool, and spinning classes.

“Wow, this all seems really great,” he gushed. “I’m a bit more into swimming myself. The size of that pool is fantastic, I can do lap training!”

“It’s the biggest one in the city,” the clerk bragged. “In fact, we’re the only facility in the entire London area that offers an Olympic-sized pool.”

“Really?” Sherlock learned something new about his beloved city every day.

“Here, why don’t you take this coupon?” The freckly brunette offered up a slip of orange paper: a free 30 day trial. Perfect. “You’ve been extremely helpful,” Sherlock enthused, grinning cheekily before spinning around to find John scanning a wall of photos behind him. Immediately, the fake smile dripped off his face, replaced with his usual neutral expression.

“Sherlock,” John called out, waving for him but not turning away from the wall. Sherlock strode forward. John wordlessly pointed to a photo taken during a weekend swimming event: their second victim smiled beautifully at the camera, his arm around a fellow Omega swimmer, getting ready to use a paddleboard.

“Bingo,” Sherlock murmured.

…………………………………………………….

 

They spent another two hours or so touring the facilities. Sherlock didn’t notice any suspicious activity, and John said that he hadn’t noticed anything, either.

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Sherlock said, showing John his free 30-day trial coupon (and the extra one he had nicked when the clerk wasn’t looking). “I need you inside the Alpha’s changing room. You’ll need to bring your swim trunks. Try to spend a lot of time changing. Engage in conversation with the others. Ask them questions like, ‘Are there any hot Omegas here?’”

John nodded.  As always, he was taking this very seriously. Good old John.  

“I’ll be in the other changing room,” Sherlock said. “Our perp should be on the prowl now, if my calculations are correct. He may not come every day, and we don’t know what time of day he will be here, so information from the regulars about the people they see here is essential.”

“I think I know what kind of behaviour to look for,” John said lightly. Of course he did.

“Excellent,” Sherlock rumbled, and waved down a taxi to take them back to Bart’s. He wanted a second look at the width of the hand marks on the strangled man’s neck. Also, the reports from the first body should be in by now—the tissue degradation was pretty bad, but they should be able to confirm that he was strangled like the second victim.

“I have a good feeling about this,” he confided in John as they watched the buildings speed by. “I really think we’ll be able to prevent a third victim. Provided nothing goes horribly wrong.”

There were a few moments of silence, and Sherlock looked over at John, who was staring at him with a strange expression on his face.

“What?” Sherlock was annoyed. John seemed to snap himself out of it, and seemed a bit sheepish.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just, you know—the others on the police force, they talk about you like you’re not human. They think that you’re, I dunno, some kind of robot or something.”

“The Automaton,” Sherlock replied, quoting their nickname for him. John nodded.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. But—they don’t get to see you, not like this. They only see little snippets of you, a few minutes here and there on a crime scene, when you’re focussing on something important. But you are human, Sherlock. You are so compassionate, and strong, and giving, that sometimes I think you’re even more human than they are.”

There seemed to be a strange glow emanating from somewhere inside Sherlock’s chest. He looked down, but it didn’t seem to be visible. Odd.

He kept that feeling inside of him for the rest of that day.

………………………………………………………

 

He was so caught up in finally being allowed access to the first body’s official autopsy report (he was correct, they had finally finished analysing the tissue) that he completely forgot about telling John that he was actually an Omega. He ended up working through most of the night, only sleeping when John got up for some water, discovered Sherlock in the kitchen, and forced the recalcitrant detective into his bed. The short blonde man seemed to take great satisfaction from taking care of Sherlock, even pulling his quilt up to his shoulders and tucking him in. It seemed a bit excessive, but somehow, Sherlock was out like a light, even though he could have sworn he wasn’t tired at all.

The next morning, there wasn’t time to have a heart-to-heart discussion, as they needed to get to the YMCA as soon as it opened. Sherlock opted to pack his suit and change into it there, to give him more time in the changing room. John did the same, although it would take him much less time to get into his trunks. Sherlock suggested he put on several layers before leaving, giving him more time to undress. John dutifully put on an additional vest and scarf before they left the flat.

Once inside the Omega changing room, Sherlock scanned the room for any potential sources of gossip. There was an elderly retired Omega whom Sherlock chatted up for a bit, but he didn’t seem too interested in talking. It was always a crap shoot with senior citizens: either they didn’t want to talk at all, or they never shut up. Sherlock had struck out with this one.

He drifted over towards a different corner of the changing room, picking out a locker and slowly removing his clothing piece by piece. Eventually a group of Omegas came in, and Sherlock smiled at them and tried to move in to talk, but they ignored him and moved out to the pool quickly. A singular Omega came in after this, one who looked to be in his early twenties, just like the victims—and he had shoulder-length blonde hair.

Sherlock once again smiled widely, and the blonde nodded back, friendly, before changing into a professional-looking swim suit. He was clearly a highly experienced swimmer. He eyed Sherlock as the detective wrestled his way into the black wetsuit he wore to the beach.

“Isn’t that a little bit of overkill for an indoor pool?” he asked, as Sherlock managed to get his feet through the legs. Sherlock laughed good-naturedly.

“Oh, sure,” he agreed, working on the zippers. “I usually bathe at the ocean, though, didn’t want to buy a whole new suit just to come here. They’re so expensive, you know?”

The blonde nodded enthusiastically. “Oh my God, are they ever!”

“And besides,” Sherlock continued, “The more you can deter the old lecherous Alphas, the better. You know?”

The blonde man laughed, zipping up his own sea-green suit. “Suit yourself, honey. I like them to look a little bit.” He then shook his ass back and forth, and Sherlock chuckled. He focussed on making the banter as natural as possible, which was extremely trying. “Listen, I’m new here,” he said, waving the orange coupon. The blonde man nodded. “Do you get a lot of… creeps here? I’m just nervous.”

The other Omega looked completely sympathetic, and patted Sherlock’s arm gently before moving on to pull a rubber swim cap and goggles out of his bag. “Oh sweetie, you don’t have to worry,” he said. “I’ve been coming here for years, and most of the Alphas here are really great guys, wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

The ‘most’ didn’t escape Sherlock’s notice, and neither did he notice the quick flicking away of the man’s blue eyes. He chewed his bottom lip: worried about something. “But?” Sherlock prompted. The other man noticed Sherlock’s scrutiny, and tried to laugh it off.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, laughing nervously and running a hand through his tousled blonde hair. “You know how it is. There’s always one in a crowd. Just… avoid coming here on Wednesday nights, okay?”

“Is there someone in particular I should look out for?” The detective tried to make the question sound innocent and earnest, and he turned his head to the side in a curious manner. It seemed to work, and the swimmer hesitated before talking some more.

“Ah, yeah, there’s this middle-aged guy that hangs out around the sidelines,” he said. “He doesn’t actually swim, you know? He said that he injured himself so he can’t anymore. I actually feel a little bit bad for him. He’s never done anything, so don’t go thinking that I’m talking bad about him! He just… makes me feel a little uncomfortable,” the blonde finished by rubbing his hands briskly up and down his arms.

“Whew! Well, that’s enough serious talk. I’m ready to get swimming! See you out there, hon,”  the blonde sashayed out the door and into the pool area.

That was their guy, Sherlock was sure of it. Wedneday night—that was tomorrow.  He grabbed his own goggles and quickly strode out to the pool.

John was already out there, doing some warmup stretches while scanning the poolside. The blonde Omega (Blake, it was monogrammed on one of his towels) had stopped dead in his tracks and was blatantly ogling John.

“Oh, hello,” he murmured, licking his lips. Sherlock was immediately irritated. Didn’t this idiot have anything better to do? I mean, of course John was highly distracting, with his military-toned muscles and lightly furry body (all blonde hair, just like on his head) (wonder if _all_ the hair on his body is that colour?) but seriously, this bitch had better keep moving, or Sherlock was going to have to take drastic measures.

The blonde idiot looked a few more seconds, then sashayed in front of John, swaying his hips in an exaggerated manner. John seemed to glance over, but continued his stretches; interested, but not enough to stop what he was doing.

Blake then did some stretching of his own, blatantly posturing, and dove seamlessly into the water like a swan. John never once faltered in his movements. Sherlock decided to approach and get an update. He tapped John on his right (uninjured) shoulder.

“Did you find out anything?”

“Jesus!” John jumped a bit. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, Sherlock! And no, I didn’t find out anything. No one’s seen anything suspicious.”

“I may have something,” Sherlock replied, and proceeded to relay what Blake had told him. John listened, nodding. He responded in full soldier mode. “Wednesday night, tomorrow, got it. We’ll be here.”

“I’m going to go ahead and swim some laps,” Sherlock said. “Feel free to do so, too. It will help our cover.” John glanced at him. “I wasn’t even aware that you knew how to swim,” he said, suddenly realising that Sherlock wasn’t wearing his customary business suit.

“Of course I know how to swim,” Sherlock was irritated. “One never knows when one will need to retrieve a vital piece of evidence from a body of water.”

John nodded, for some reason looking amused, like Sherlock had said something funny. People sometimes did that whenever he talked, although the brown-haired Omega couldn’t figure out why.

He lowered himself carefully into the pool by a ladder, and began to leisurely swim the breaststroke. It was actually quite refreshing to be able to swim in a full 50-metre sized pool; no wonder enthusiasts would come here specifically. He heard John jump into the pool a ways behind him; must have decided to stop stretching and get his toes wet.

Sherlock had reached the other end of the pool, and was considering whether or not he wanted to try a flip turn, when he heard voices behind him—one of which sounded like John’s. Opting for a flip turn for optimum speed, Sherlock shot back, and blinked to clear his vision.

John was swimming from his position in the water towards the edge, and appeared to be aiming for the ladder that would carry him out of the pool. The figure he was talking with was standing by the edge of the pool, and the figure was unmistakable: Lestrade.

Sherlock frowned. What was the DI doing here? He was wearing his work clothes; had come here on business, then, and decided to come over for a chat when he saw John. If he was here on work, then that meant that the police had finally caught up to him regarding chain of events. It was about time.

As he slowly neared the two, he was able to hear their conversation travelling across the water. “Thanks for that tip about the ID on the second victim,” Lestrade was saying. Of course. John must have sent the inspector a message after seeing the photo in the lobby; it was just the sort of thing that kind-hearted John would do. Sherlock hadn’t even thought of it.

“No problem,” John was saying. “And we think we even have a suspect, too. Nothing concrete yet.” Sherlock couldn’t see Lestrade’s face from this far away, but his response sounded regretful. “Wish I could get a warrant just based on ‘Sherlock thinks he’s a suspect’,” the grey-haired man said. “Unfortunately, I don’t think my boss would take it as enough proof to bring him in.” 

Honestly, this was the most reasonable thing Sherlock had ever heard the detective inspector say. He couldn’t believe that he had never known before just how much the two of them agreed with each other. Of course they should be able to bring people in just because Sherlock said so! It would save so much wasted time! Lestrade should get a raise. And a promotion.

Just then, Lestrade’s partner Sally walked up to the poolside. Of course Lestrade wouldn’t go anywhere without his partner. “Christ, what is the freak wearing,” she said caustically. Didn’t that woman have anything better to do with her time? “Does he think he’s going on an ocean adventure at the pool?” Lestrade bumped her foot with his foot, cutting her off mid-snicker.

“Leave him alone, Sal. Come on. It’s Sherlock.”

John glared at both of them. “That’s completely unprofessional, Donovan,” he said sharply. The woman shrank back a little from his anger. “A wetsuit is completely appropriate water gear. Or did it ever occur to you that maybe Sherlock likes to dress modestly?”

From the looks on Lestrade and Donovan’s faces, no, it hadn’t occurred to them. Sherlock internally preened that his John was defending him, telling those betas where to go. Off in the corner, Blake the Blonde was staring at John, swooning a little.

Time to cut this short. He made a beeline for the group, swimming diagonally now. The three stopped talking abruptly, although the two police officers looked contrite. John looked at Sherlock possessively, eyes smouldering. Mmm.

He smirked. “Good to see you, inspectors,” he said, eyeing the two Betas. “How would you feel about joining us on a little stakeout?”

Greg perked up, and Sally looked interested too. Good, he had their attention.

“Might be able to swing a stakeout,” Lestrade said. “Wouldn’t be able to approve an arrest warrant, but a stakeout, sure.”

“Good,” Sherlock replied. “Meet us here tomorrow evening. Bring your cuffs: you may be making an arrest.”

Now they both looked eager. Say what they would about his clothing choices, Sherlock was a man who got results the cops could only dream of. John looked pleased, and proud. Proud of Sherlock. Mmm. That made warmth spread all the way down to his pale thin toes.

“I’ll make sure to be here,” Donovan said, and she didn’t sound sarcastic. When push came to shove, she was, at the end of the day, a cop determined to do her job. It was the only reason Sherlock tolerated her. She continued speaking.

“We’ve obtained records from the facility, and our victims both swam regularly on Wednesdays, starting with the Open Swim at 6pm.” Sherlock nodded in acknowledgement.

“John, a word,” he said, jerking his head towards a bench by the wall. John nodded as Sherlock climbed out of the pool, and they both began walking out of immediate earshot of the cops. Sherlock caught John eyeing the water dripping off of his wetsuit, with a hungry expression on his face. He hadn’t looked even remotely this interested in Blake.

“John, I have a special task for you tomorrow,” he rumbled, and John’s pupils instantly dilated. His pink tongue darted out to lick his lower lip. “You know I’m your man,” he breathed. Sherlock smirked.

“You see that blonde man over there?” he nodded towards where Blake had now resumed swimming laps, practically flying over the length of the pool—he was doing the butterfly stroke, but he looked more like a stone being skipped over the surface of the water. John nodded.

“He has already been targeted as the next victim,” Sherlock announced, watching John’s face instantly contort into worry.

“We have to go tell him!” John started moving towards Blake, but Sherlock caught his arm. “No, we need him as bait,” Sherlock hissed. John looked incredulous.

Sherlock huffed. “Look, do you want to catch our guy or not?”

John wavered, then nodded, resigned. “Okay, fine, Sherlock. But we don’t let him get harmed, all right? If it looks like things are going south, we get him out of here.”

Sherlock nodded. “Agreed. Your job, John, is to draw out our perp and force him to make a move. Once we have him in the act, then Lestrade and Donovan can catch him ‘red-handed’, as it were.”

John appeared quite satisfied with this. His hand and leg were calm and steady, ready for the danger. A bit premature, but Sherlock appreciated his partner’s enthusiasm.

“Good man,” he clapped John on the shoulder, and the blonde soldier nodded, a happy look on his face. “Now, there isn’t much left to do other than wait. I’m off to shower and get out of this contraption. We’ll meet later at the lobby.”

Sherlock strode off to the changing room again, although as he was closing the door behind him, he thought he heard some sort of commotion. Whatever. It probably wasn’t important.

……………………………………………………………….


	11. Present Day, Pt 6: Confession

……………………………………………………………….

 

Oddly, John had been silent the entire cab drive back to Baker Street. He occasionally shot Sherlock a strange look, before turning back to his window. Sherlock assumed that he would eventually tell Sherlock whatever he was thinking, and continued to plan out all the possible scenarios for tomorrow night, and contingency plans for each.

Once back inside their homey flat, Sherlock sat back comfortably in his chair by the fireplace, fingers steepled in front of his chin. Ah, yes, he had nearly forgotten again.

“John, there is something important to discuss,” he began, but John cut him off. “Yes. Yes, Sherlock, there is something important to discuss.” The blonde had been pacing back and forth on the carpet, seemingly unable to stand still. Why was he so agitated?

“Well, all right then, you first,” Sherlock motioned with a hand for John to continue. The Alpha hesitated, then hardened his chin and continued.

“Right. Sherlock, what was that all about?”

Sherlock blinked slowly, nonplussed. John was more irritated by his incomprehension.

“Back at the pool, Sherlock! The changing room! What were you thinking?”

Sherlock was very confused. “I’m… not sure what you’re talking about, John. Are you angry about having to question the other Alphas? Because we talked about it beforehand, and you agreed-“

“No, Sherlock!” John cut him off, enraged. “I’m not talking about the Alpha changing room! I’m talking about you! How can you not see any problem with what you did?”

Now Sherlock was completely baffled. He just sat there, head tilted at an angle at his deranged flatmate. Maybe, if he tilted it hard enough, he’d be able to see into that blonde head and figure out what was going on?

“The changing room, Sherlock!! You went into the Omega changing room! Christ, do you have any idea how inappropriate that is? Sherlock, I had to talk Lestrade and Donovan out of arresting you right there on the spot!”

Sherlock stared forward, stunned.

“Look, I know that you don’t have bad intentions, but going into another gender’s changing room is out of line, Sherlock. Do you have any idea how many perverts there are out there? You must, you’re always spouting crime statistics at me. A Beta in the Omega’s changing room is treated very seriously, Sherlock! I understand that you were in there to listen to conversations, and probably-“ here he choked a little bit- “-talk to them about suspiciously-behaving Alphas, but Christ!!”

Of course. It all made sense. Everyone thought he was a Beta. He wasn’t, of course, and this had been apparently obvious to the other Omegas in the changing room once he had started stripping (there are just some things you can’t hide, after all), but no wonder the others had been in an uproar.

There were a few moments of silence where he and John just stared at each other. John was still panting heavily, but he seemed to be calming down by the minute, whatever was on Sherlock’s face throwing doubt on his convictions.

“Sherlock?”

“Well, this is bloody awkward,” Sherlock ground out, lowering his hands to grip the arms on his chair. “I’ve been trying to tell you this for the past few days, but I keep getting interrupted, or forgetting. And all this could have been avoided if I had just…”

Sherlock could see John’s brain buzzing, suddenly recounting all of their interactions, and realising that Sherlock _had_ been trying to say something. He looked confused now, and apprehensive.

“All right, what is it then,” John demanded.

“I’m an Omega,” Sherlock replied.

The silence was nearly deafening. Even the sound of traffic on the street seemed to be suspended, John completely motionless, frozen mid-stride, staring blankly at Sherlock’s face. Sherlock tapped a finger on the chair arm.

_Tap tap tap._

Sherlock waited for John to snap out of it, to process the information, to do _something_ , but the Alpha just remained completely still, unblinking.  After a couple of minutes, Sherlock decided he had to say something more.

“John?”

The sound of Sherlock’s voice seemed to un-freeze John, and he slowly collapsed into his chair opposite Sherlock’s. Not once did his eyes leave Sherlock’s face, and whatever he was reading there seemed to convince him that it was the truth.

“I take Solnera,” Sherlock explained. John was a doctor. He would know what that meant.

“Solnera,” John rasped, still staring at Sherlock’s face. “An oral contraceptive for Omegas.” Good. He was focusing on facts.

“It suppresses production of the AB-2 pheromone,” Sherlock reminded him. John blinked rapidly.

“AB-2 pheromone,” he seemed to be searching his brain, “A pheromone emitted by sexually mature, unbonded Omegas. There is a corresponding receptor in Alphas so they can sense who is bonded and who is not.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said. “And I don’t produce it anymore. Because of the Solnera.”

John had now looked away from Sherlock’s face, and was staring at his body as though he had never seen it before. He seemed to be trying to see through Sherlock’s suit jacket and trousers. “All your clothes,” he whispered, “They’re not specifically Beta clothes. They could belong to any gender, really.”

“Yes,” Sherlock replied.

“You aren’t actually hiding anything,” John said, a little bit louder, suddenly realising that where Sherlock’s dress shirt sleeves had been pulled up, his arms were pale and hairless. His dark blue eyes scanned over Sherlock’s naturally hairless face, his handsome angular jawline, his long curly hair. “God, you’re not hiding anything at all. It’s just, simply because you don’t smell like an Omega, everyone thinks—“

“They see, but do not observe,” Sherlock replied. John huffed, disbelieving.

“God, I’ve been stupid,” he said softly, staring at Sherlock. “You’ve been right, all this time. All of us are stupid. I noticed that your butt looked curvy in that wetsuit, even Sally remarked that you weren’t wearing trunks, but we never connected the dots…”

“Well, that, and I do like to dress modestly at the pool,” Sherlock replied. John stared for a second, realised that Sherlock must have heard his conversation, and then laughed a little bit. “Of course. Of course you do. I—and the past couple of days, you’ve been trying to approach me about something, and we keep getting interrupted—“

“You said that you were interested in Omegas,” Sherlock reminded John of their conversation, and another light went off behind John’s eyes.

“And that was when you started coming on to me! I knew I wasn’t imagining it, Greg was wrong. I couldn’t figure out why you had changed your behaviour all of a sudden, but of course, it was after you found out that I might be interested—“

“I’ve always known you were interested,” Sherlock corrected, and John flushed to his forehead. “I just assumed that you were only interested in Betas, since they were the only ones you dated, and since you seemed to think that I was one as well.”

“Christ,” John tried to hide his face behind a hand, embarrassed. “That obvious, eh? Heh, heh. Well. Can’t blame a lad for trying. You are… very handsome, Sherlock, and a fascinating person. You already know everything, I might as well own up to it. I want you. I wanted you as a Beta, and now that I know the truth, I want you as an Omega.”

He was telling the truth. None of the telltale lying markers were visible on his face, and his eyes were sincere. He really did think that Sherlock was a fascinating person. Sherlock had to make sure.

“You don’t find my behaviours… repulsive?”

John chuckled. “Repulsive? Good lord, is that what people told you in the past? No, Sherlock. You’re different. You’re interesting. You keep my mind and my body sharp, you challenge me to be a better person. I like being around you, Sherlock, even if you are a little bit inappropriate at times. I’m not a typical Alpha, myself. I mean, I don’t know any other Alphas who even made it all the way through college, let alone med school. I guess we’ll just be the odd couple, eh?”

The odd couple. Sherlock liked the sound of that. He smiled. “Let’s be strange together, John,” he proposed. “The Omega consulting detective and the Alpha doctor. Two men of science and reason, against all the odds. What do you say?”

John’s grin looked like it might split his face in half. “Sounds damn near perfect,” he replied, and the warmth that shone from his kind eyes seemed to bring Sherlock’s cold body back to life.

…………………………………………………………………

 

John spent most of the day Wednesday at his shift at the clinic, but after he got out, they had a tentative first date out for dinner. It went very well, Sherlock thought, and neither of them minded at all when Angelo brought out candles to their table.

That evening, they met up with Donovan and Lestrade outside the South London YMCA. They seemed disgruntled, and shot vaguely disgusted looks at Sherlock. Oh, right, the changing room incident. Sherlock decided it was too stupid to mention and just carried on as usual. “I want to do some surveillance around the parking lot,” he told them. “John, go ahead and get changed and go into the pool area, Blake should already be there. Start swimming. He’ll most likely start posturing once he sees you. Pretend to be impressed, start chatting him up. You know. The usual Watson charm. Keep an eye out for the middle-aged man on the bench, not swimming.”

John nodded solemnly.

Sherlock turned to the police. “I want you two out here, with me. It may take several of us to subdue the Alpha, depending on how angry he is. Our best bet is the element of surprise.” The two nodded, their former anger put to the side. The betas were completely focussed on their task of getting the bad guy off the streets, and were willing to overlook Sherlock’s eccentricities, for now.

Before they split up, John took Sherlock aside by the arm. “Just wanted to tell you. Before I go in to flirt with another guy. You’re the only one for me, you know?” Sherlock did know, but strangely, it did his heart good to hear it. He smiled at John, and watched as the short man marched into the lobby, coupon voucher in hand.

Behind him, he heard Donovan say, “Who’s Blake?”

…………………………………………..

The trio rounded the exterior of the building. This late at night, there weren’t many people here—the majority of people would utilise the gym on the weekends, not a weeknight.  Only the truly dedicated were able to motivate themselves to come here after work.

They walked around to the side of the building where the pool was, Sherlock in the lead, Donovan and Lestrade following, talking quietly. At last, Sherlock saw the blocky cubes of glass surrounding two walls of the pool come into view. They were designed so that you couldn’t really see through them, but they did allow sunlight in during the day.

There! That was what Sherlock was looking for. He rushed forward, leaving the two officers behind. An old van, nondescript, tinted windows. It was parked alone, at the edge of the parking lot, as close as possible to one of the exterior doors leading into the pool area.

Sherlock was very familiar with those doors. He had, in fact, scrutinised them thoroughly yesterday morning, and found that they were not attached to any sort of alarm system—they had been disabled from it, and judging by the scuff marks around the bottom edge, propped open by rocks frequently. Depending on how many people were inside, the pool area could grow quite heated and humid, even in the winter. No doubt the athletes would prop the doors open to try to give themselves a cool breeze.

Yesterday, Sherlock hadn’t been sure which of the two exterior doors the perp would use. Now, with the lone truck parked next to the one at the far end, it was obvious.

“What do you see, Sherlock?”

Lestrade sounded eager. Beside him, Donovan snorted.

“Who knows what the hell the freak is looking at? He’s probably planning on breaking into it after we leave.”

“It’s the perp’s truck,” Sherlock replied curtly, and Donovan shut her mouth with a click. “It was quite obvious, Donovan, what with it being the only car in this entire parking lot not near the front entrance. Convenient for a poolside snatching, wouldn’t you say?”  He pointed towards the building, and Donovan and Lestrade followed the line of his arm directly over to the small emergency exit door.

“Wait. Does that go directly to the poolside?” Lestrade asked, and Sherlock wanted to beat himself over the head with a stick. “Yes!” he growled, grabbing his hair with two fists and pulling, to relieve the pressure building up in his skull. “And it is where, if my calculations are correct, the perpetrator will be attempting to exit with his new victim later tonight.”

The two police officers appeared struck by this, and eyed the line from the truck to the door with a new appreciation. Lestrade nodded. “Right. Okay. Good work, Sherlock. We can catch this guy in the act, there isn’t much he can do to wiggle out of that. Once we have him in custody for attempted kidnapping, we can get a warrant to search his things, and find evidence pertaining to the kidnappings and killings of the first two boys.”

Donovan didn’t say anything. She appeared sceptical, but also hopeful. She wasn’t totally convinced that Sherlock wasn’t blowing hot air, but she really, _really_ wanted him to be right.

“Now we wait,” Sherlock murmured, leaning against the truck and wishing he had a cigarette.  Lestrade took it upon himself to organise them into position around the door, and for him and Donovan to run through possible scenarios on what they would do if the guy tried to pull a runner. Lestrade ended up deciding to call in for a backup car.

Meanwhile, Sherlock drifted in thought. He started out thinking about the serial killer, but then ended up thinking about John. _John_. How gentle his eyes had seemed, almost black in the candlelight, smiling up at Sherlock and caressing his hand. They had held hands for quite a while in the restaurant, John’s warm palm covering his pale slender fingers. John had busy hands; he frequently caressed and rubbed Sherlock’s fingers and palm, worrying along all of the lines and creases worn into Sherlock’s hands by his chemistry work. He had seemed to take great delight in discovering the callouses on the sides and tips of Sherlock’s fingers, rubbed there from years of violin practice.

Sherlock re-traced those lines now, rubbing his own fingers along each other, relishing the memory. He missed John. It was a stupid sentiment, completely illogical, but nonetheless true. He wished that John were here with him now, leaning against the building with him, warming his hands from the cool air. John wasn’t tedious company, like the police were. John didn’t hate him, or think he was a freak; John liked him. John wanted to spend time with him. John wanted to date him.

The date earlier had gone very well. Sherlock had read that, after a successful date, it was customary to kiss. When they went back to Baker Street tonight, would John be amenable to a kiss? Sherlock thought he might.

The following series of events were so quick, so rapid, that all Sherlock could do was react—it wasn’t until later that he would fully recount exactly what happened.

There was a scream from just on the other side of the door. A fumbling, the sounds of scuffling on the tiles, and then the door banged open.

An Alpha man of average height and build was dragging Blake across the threshold. He had one hand in his pocket, and was pulling out a rag (most likely covered in chloroform), and had the other hand twisted in that long blonde hair. Blake was screaming and crying, face scrunched up and red, and was making a half-hearted attempt to get away, but was thwarted by his own terror. His limbs seemed to be moving sluggishly; he may have already been partially dosed by the chloroform rag.

Donovan and Lestrade instantly jumped the man, pulling him down onto the ground. Sherlock rushed forward towards Blake and pulled him away from the tangle of fighting, ripping off his own scarf to cushion the man’s head. He was shaking and crying and didn’t seem to understand what was going on. Sherlock propped his feet up against the wall, and covered Blake with his thick Belstaff. He needed to keep up blood flow to the Omega’s head, to stop him from going unconscious.

He grabbed the man’s hand and rubbed it, getting circulation into it. He chanced a look up at the others. John had now emerged from the building as well, soaking wet from the pool and with his chest bare, but he didn’t seem to be cold at all. His chest was heaving, and he was sitting on the other Alpha’s back while Donovan cuffed the bastard. Lestrade was holding down the Alpha’s legs. Looks like it had taken all three of them to subdue the guy.

Just then, the sound of more sirens appeared in the background—the backup Lestrade had called for was arriving, along with an ambulance. The atmosphere of the night, the terrified omega at his feet, the sounds of the sirens and the lights—Sherlock had to force himself back into the present. He shook his head fiercely. This _wasn’t_ a decade ago, it was completely different.

Blake was alive. He was shaken up, only just now seemed to be realising that his attacker was long gone, but he was alive. He looked up at Sherlock uncomprehendingly. Sherlock patted his cheek.

“Are you still with me?” he asked the man. Blake stared at him, and a vague light of recognition lit in his eyes. “You…” he whispered, then coughed. “The Omega from yesterday.”

“My name is Sherlock Holmes,” Sherlock introduced himself, and rubbed Blake’s hand again for more circulation. “I’ve been tracking down that man who attacked you tonight. He’s being arrested right now.”

Blake blearily turned his head, and observed the two officers and John wrestling the man into a car with flashing lights. He seemed to understand that he wasn’t going to be attacked again, because his body relaxed a bit. He was trying to put facts together. “Sherlock Holmes,” he whispered. “I… I’ve heard of you. You’re… a detective. No one ever said you were an Omega, though.”

“Not important,” Sherlock replied. “I catch criminals. That’s the only thing that matters.”

Blake nodded, like somehow, he understood. In this moment of insanity, where he had been an inch away from certain death, where the lights and the sirens and the cold air all seemed to swirl together, social stereotypes meant nothing. All that mattered was people offering helping hands to each other.

Sherlock could see the ambulance crew wheeling over a stretcher, and getting warm blankets ready. He only had a few seconds left. “Blake,” he said urgently, looking down into the man’s soft, pale blue eyes. “Blake, I want you to look at me.” Blake tried to focus.

“You are going to swim again. Do you understand me? You will swim again.”

Blake didn’t seem to comprehend what was going on, and then the ambulance crew had swept him up into the stretcher and rushed him off into the night with more sirens, but that was all right. He would understand, in time. Sherlock was sure of it.

Blake had been looking and focussing when Sherlock said it. He would remember it. And later, during his long road to (psychological) recovery (the physical part was always the easiest, wasn’t it?) he would remember those words. And he would believe.

Sherlock took deep breaths, and tilted his head back at the night sky, looking at the few stars visible through the lights of the city.

He had saved this one.

……………………………………………………………….


	12. Present Day, Pt 7: Passion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter where the 'consensual sex' tag is applied. If you don't want to read, then just skip over this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My very first publicly-posted fanfic sex scene! Looks like Sherlock's isn't the only cherry getting popped...

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“Yeah, I saw that guy on the bench right away,” John was babbling. “If you hadn’t told me, Sherlock, I wouldn’t have thought twice: just some guy. No wonder none of the other Alphas I talked to had noticed anything. But he was staring at the blonde Omega, Sherlock, just staring at him. And when I started talking to Blake, the guy got even angrier.”

They were back at the police station, giving their report of the night’s events. Donovan and Lestrade were standing nearby, voice recording.

“The friendlier I got with Blake, the more it seemed to enrage the guy,” John said. “It was really working him up, another Alpha making a move on the boy he had picked out for himself. It seemed to spur him into action. When I went into the changing room to get my cell phone to text you for a report, he grabbed the Omega.”

Donovan nodded, intently making notes on a notepad.

“When I heard the noise, I rushed back out without making the text. I saw that he had already dragged Blake out the door, and that Lestrade and Donovan” – he nodded at them—“were struggling to detain him. I decided to get the guy down, so he could be cuffed. You guys pretty much handled it from there.”

Lestrade stopped the tape recorder, although Donovan kept taking notes. “Good work, everyone,” Lestrade praised. “We got this guy off of the streets. We don’t have any evidence right now that he killed the first two boys, but he was trying to kidnap one, and that’s enough for me to feel good about taking him down. I’ve talked to my C.O., and by morning the judge will have finished approving a search warrant for the man’s residence and vehicle.”

He paused, taking a deep breath, and Donovan and John were both smiling broadly. Lestrade grinned back. “Heck, I’m so happy, I don’t even mind doing the paperwork on this one.” Donovan nodded in agreement, and the two of them sat down to start writing up their reports, shooing Sherlock and John out of the office. “Go on, you two. We’ll call you if we need anything else.”

So the Consulting Detective and his Doctor rushed out of the police department office in high spirits, practically skipping down the steps, holding hands as they recklessly ran through the streets, too wound up to take a taxi.

When they arrived back at Baker Street, panting and giggling, Sherlock had barely closed the door and locked it when John was pulling him down into a heated kiss. Sherlock found himself being backed up into the door by a very enthusiastic blonde, snogged to within an inch of his life. John’s breath was hot against his mouth, and his ear, and his jaw. He smelled like warmth and tea and musk and _John_ , and it was so good, why hadn’t they done this before?

Somehow they managed to get up the stairs, although his memory was a bit fuzzy as to how. He found himself on his back on his bed, and his shoes were gone and John’s jumper was too, and when had _that_ happened? He ran his fingers through the short blonde hair, which was so soft and silky. John was trying to undo the buttons on Sherlock’s dress shirt, but was fumbling it pretty badly, and snickering all the while. Sherlock found himself grinning at this, and lowered his own hands to help.

Eventually most of the buttons came undone, and John’s breath hitched with each inch of pale skin that was revealed. He slid his tanned hands up under the folds of the dark purple shirt, across Sherlock’s flat hairless chest, feeling around the taller man’s ribcage. Sherlock hissed when he came across a ticklish spot, and John pulled back. Curiously, John examined Sherlock’s nipples; first visually, then with his tongue.

Sherlock was suddenly struck through by a wave of longing that swept through his abdomen. He had no idea that his nipples were that sensitive: how clever of John to think of it! He tried to tell John this, but wasn’t able to get much out other than half-muttered sobs. Bizarrely, John seemed to understand completely, and continued his attentions enthusiastically.

Sherlock wanted to feel John, everywhere. His hands roamed all over the doctor’s back, feeling the strong lines of muscles flexing underneath tanned skin.  He spent an immeasurable amount of time feeling the punctuation mark of the bullet scar: judging by the size how big the bullet must have been, feeling the bones underneath that had been broken and then healed again, feeling by the scar tissue how infection had spread.  How close he had come, then, to losing this man; a man that he hadn’t even met yet, that he hadn’t known would become the light to his darkness. He decided to push away thoughts of what a life without John would have been like.

Suddenly, he was possessed by an unquenchable desire to feel John’s legs sliding against his, skin to skin. He moved his hands to John’s trousers, but for some reason was unable to undo his fly from this angle.  John pulled back from the kiss panting, and giggling a little, reached down and unzipped his fly himself.  Sherlock stared, rapturous, as the delicious outline of John’s cock was revealed. John then attempted to kick off his jeans, in a rather ungainly fashion, and after much cursing and thrashing was able to succeed.

Annoyingly, John immediately rolled onto his front on top of Sherlock and began snogging him. But Sherlock had barely seen John’s cock at all! He pushed the shorter man off again, and stared intently at his pants, ignoring the confused looks John was sending him. He reached out, curiously, towards the bulge hidden behind the white cotton briefs.

John took a shaky breath when Sherlock’s fingers made contact with his groin. His dark blue eyes fluttered shut, blonde lashes hovering over dark red cheeks. He seemed aroused; Sherlock took this as an invitation to continue.

John’s cock felt very nice in Sherlock’s hand. It was warm and firm, and ever so slightly damp. Sherlock curiously peeled down the top of the pants: it seemed that the tip was leaking a clear fluid, and the head was eagerly poking out of the foreskin towards the sky. The whole organ was a dusky red, as though it were flushed with excitement.

Sherlock wanted to take John’s pants off completely. He looked up at John’s face, to see if he could proceed, and saw that the rest of John’s skin was almost as ruddy as his cock. John was breathing very deeply, as though he was trying to control himself and was only hanging on by a thread. At Sherlock’s questioning glance, he nodded shakily, and helped Sherlock to pull his pants down and off his legs.

Years ago, Sherlock had sat in front of a computer screen in his room after his first heat, horrified beyond belief at what was displayed on his monitor. And strangely enough, although John’s cock was approximately the same as that long-ago digital image, it evoked no feelings of revulsion from Sherlock at all.

The fleshy damp cock, curled up against John’s belly blushing like a maiden, was approximately the same as Sherlock’s own. He noted that it was indeed longer and thicker, all perfectly normal for an Alpha, and seemed to curve slightly to the left. Sherlock brought his hips forward, realised he was still dressed, and began hastily trying to rectify that situation. John reached down to help, but became distracted by rubbing Sherlock’s butt while he struggled with getting his trousers over his knees. All in all, an action which did _not_ help to get the trousers and pants off any faster.

Eventually, despite John’s ‘help’, Sherlock was clad only in his purple dress shirt from earlier, fully unbuttoned down the front. Since he could easily access Sherlock’s chest and nipples, John didn’t seem in any hurry to remove the shirt the rest of the way.

Sherlock scooted forward, wrapping their legs together: it felt just as good as he had imagined. John’s tanned legs wound sinuously around his own, the blonde hairs on John’s calves rasping faintly across his own smooth, pale, thin calves.  Sherlock was in sensation overload; he wanted as much of John’s body as possible rubbing over his own, wanted more sensation, more friction…

Suddenly remembering what he had wanted to do earlier, Sherlock brought his hips forward, bringing his cock into alignment with John’s. He observed them for a moment.  His own organ was paler in colour, but still had a red tint from all the blood. It seemed narrower, and lacked the telltale skin patches at the base of John’s—that was where John’s knot would form, if Sherlock were in heat. Since his heat was nowhere near due, the skin patches remained flat with no hint of swelling.

The biggest difference, Sherlock decided, was in their testicles. Alphas tended to have larger testicles than Omega and Beta males, both for producing massive amounts of sperm, and the increased testosterone production their gender required. Right now, John’s red furry balls were pulled tightly up towards his torso—the skin under the pale curls was shifting, constantly contracting, and John shivered when Sherlock placed a curious finger on it. Several degrees cooler than the skin on his legs: perfectly healthy.

A whiff of delightful salty musk was emanating from John’s groin; as Sherlock inhaled appreciatively, he noted that John’s curls weren’t quite as blonde as the hair on his head; it was more of a pale brown colour. Interesting. Sherlock’s own pubic hair was jet black, slightly darker than the hair on his head as well. Was this a general trend amongst humans? To have slightly darker pubic hair?

John thrust his hips forward, causing them to bump together, and pulling Sherlock away from thoughts of how to conduct experiments on that. All of his nerve endings seemed _alive_ ; unlike morphine, which dulled the senses, this experience seemed to create the opposite sensation. Every nerve ending was on fire: every stroke of John’s hand on them threatened to cause a short-circuit. All of the synapses in Sherlock’s brain were firing at once, and every contact of skin-on-skin skirted the edge of being too much.

John seemed to be breathing out words under his breath; possibly curses, possibly prayers. His panting breath was hot on Sherlock’s neck.  The detective himself was keening constantly, and he had no idea when he’d started doing that. He decided to try and help John. Since John’s hand was wrapped around the base of their cocks, he wrapped his hand around the head of John’s cock that was poking out the top. John threw back his head and let out a quiet “Fuck,” before dropping his head back down to stare at their hands.

Sherlock had never seen anything as erotic as John Watson. John’s arm muscles flexed tantalisingly, his chest heaved, his throat growled, his blonde hair gleamed, and a bead of sweat slowly trickled down from his forehead towards his jaw. On impulse, Sherlock licked it, a brief salty drop, and then traced its path with his tongue.

John growled even more deeply, until his whole chest was vibrating with it. Sherlock felt lightheaded; thoughts drifted in and out of his head faster than he could follow them. Each stroke of their hands wound him up that much tighter; unbidden, his abdomen began to pull in and tighten. He could feel the muscles low in his stomach clenching up, could feel the muscles around his anus loosen and tighten at intervals, begging to be touched.

It wasn’t enough.  As good as the stimulation on Sherlock’s cock was, he _needed_ to be stroked behind. Sherlock pulled back, breaking their sloppy kiss, and John looked dazed. He didn’t seem to understand what Sherlock wanted, and was extremely reluctant to stop stroking their cocks together.

Sherlock couldn’t be bothered to speak. Speaking was tedious. Instead, he grabbed John’s hand in his own, and guided it between his butt cheeks. Once he gripped John’s index finger and made it stroke his entrance, an electric shock seemed to go through the shorter man’s body. He actually saw the hair on John’s arms stand on end, and the Alpha man groaned as though he were in pain.

In a flash, Sherlock had been pushed from his side onto his back, with John straddling him. A thrill travelled down Sherlock’s spine at this show of strength, and he shuddered again when the clever finger stroked his opening tenderly. It seemed John had gotten the gist of what Sherlock wanted, despite no verbal instruction.

Sherlock eagerly held his legs up higher and wider, making a spot for John between them. John’s finger was warm, and broader than his own, and each stroke was more tingling friction exactly where Sherlock wanted it. Absently, Sherlock brought his own hand back to his cock, to pull it lazily. John saw, and moaned, swaying a little.

When John’s head dropped down, Sherlock at first thought that the other man had had a stroke, and he froze. The first questing strokes of a hot, wet tongue made Sherlock groan; partly because of how wonderful it felt, and partly through relief that John wasn’t dead.  Sherlock wished that he could see what John was doing. He could feel the wet caresses, but when he looked down, all he could see was the top of the man’s blonde head moving around.

Sherlock decided to push away his frustration at not being able to see properly, and focus on feeling the sensations instead. He stretched out, tilted his head back and closed his eyes. It was a bit strange to feel the delicious heat of John’s mouth, and hear the obscene sounds as he eagerly plunged his tongue in as deep as it could go, but not be able to see John’s facial expressions. He tried to imagine what his partner’s face would look like; would it be flushed? Judging by the rapturous moans every time John got a taste of the slick coating the inside of his passage, he would have a worshipful expression. Possibly he might have a furrow in-between his brows from concentrating.

Fuelled by both the blood rushing to his genitals and the mental fantasy, Sherlock felt his abdomen clenching tighter and tighter, felt his own modest balls drawing up close to his body, and before he could issue so much as a shout of warning, he was falling over the edge.

A few minutes later, eyes still clenched tight and twitching with aftershocks, Sherlock felt a small amount of embarrassment at not warning John that he was so close. But how could he have known? He had never felt an orgasm come on so suddenly and so quickly. Prying open an eye, he looked down at where John was still kneeling in-between his knees.

The man didn’t look disappointed in the least. He had an expression rather like the cat that got the cream, and was staring down at Sherlock with a possessive expression. Every so often he would unconsciously lick his lips; savouring the taste of the Omega’s slick. It made Sherlock blush, pleased with the idea that his lover was so enjoying himself.

John looked down at where Sherlock’s ejaculate was cooling on his stomach. He swiped a finger through one of the thick white ropes, and curiously tasted it. Sherlock felt his heart stutter in his chest at the sight. John looked up at him and smiled.

“It tastes just like your slick,” he said, sounding surprised. Sherlock smiled back at the man who was now enthusiastically sucking his fingers. Just when Sherlock was wondering how much more of this his poor heart could take, John stopped and looked up with an unsure expression. He seemed to be debating with himself. Finally, he steeled his shoulders and asked in a hushed voice, “Is it true?”

Sherlock frowned. “Is what true?” he asked, unsure of where the Alpha was going with this. John paused again.

“Is it… I mean… when you’re in heat. Do you really… make so much slick that… it actually runs down your legs?”

Sherlock hadn’t thought it was possible to blush more, but apparently he was wrong, because his face felt practically incandescent. The explicit question had blood rushing back to his groin and internal passage, which now were practically throbbing. “Yes,” he whispered hoarsely.

John moaned, low and long in his throat, staring at Sherlock’s face. Sherlock could see his pupils dilate to almost black. A shudder ran through the man’s strong shoulders, and seemed to travel down his spine. The soldier licked his lips. “And… is it also true… that Omegas are capable of multiple orgasms? I mean… are you…”

Sherlock smirked, and nodded downwards. John took his eyes off the detective’s for a moment to look down, and see where the taller man’s cock was still quite erect. He let out a shaky breath, and stroked a hand along the inside of Sherlock’s thigh.

Sherlock noticed that John was still hard: he hadn’t come yet.  The insistent throbbing of his ass and the still- not- sated desire to be filled made Sherlock spread his legs a little bit wider. John stared at Sherlock’s face intently, still stroking his thigh, eyes smouldering. Sherlock wriggled his hips a bit. “I’d like you to, John,” he said, pointedly looking to the man’s thick Alpha cock.

John still stared, searching Sherlock’s face. The Omega wasn’t totally sure what John was looking for, but whatever it was he seemed to find it, because he nodded in a satisfied way and looked down at his crotch too. He grabbed his shaft, and guided the head of his cock to brush against the Omega’s opening. He stroked up and down, up and down, testing the softness, testing to see if Sherlock was ready.

Sherlock was beyond ready. The tongue had been great, but _this_ —this was what he really wanted. Each brush of that hard cock made something deep inside of him clench and his cock throb. He squeezed his eyes shut against the intense sensations, and tried to muffle his moans in his shoulder. He could feel his entrance getting softer and softer, each time that cock passed by, trying to entice it in. He tried to tell John that he was ready, but all he could manage was something garbled and frantic-sounding.

John pressed the head in, and then paused and let out a shaky groan. It felt so good, so good, but Sherlock needed _more_ , needed him _in_ —

John let out all of the air in his lungs in a rush, and then suddenly he was sliding all the way in. Sherlock could feel it when he bottomed out, his hips and John’s flush against each other, and the very tip of his Alpha cock brushing that place deep inside that had been clenching earlier. Sherlock moaned with the luxurious feel of it, of how full he felt, so full of John, and it was too much; Sherlock’s head thrashed around on the pillows, feeling the delicious hot stretch, the hot stretch he had craved for so long, and he couldn’t seem to control any of his muscles anymore, he couldn’t stop thrashing—

John pulled back, and then slid in again with a muttered curse. He looked like he was concentrating very hard, and couldn’t seem to look away from their groins. He seemed transfixed by the sight of his cock sliding in and out of Sherlock’s ass. “Fuck that’s so hot,” he mumbled under his breath, and Sherlock scratched his nails down one of his pectoral muscles since he couldn’t speak at the moment.

The scratch made John look up, and the second he saw Sherlock’s face, he lunged forward and began kissing Sherlock like a drowning man gasps for air. He bent Sherlock forward under this onslaught until his knees were right by his ears; Sherlock slipped them over John’s broad shoulders and hooked them around his back, drawing the doctor even closer, locked his ankles together so John couldn’t draw away.

John didn’t want to draw away. He seemed unable to do anything other than give sloppy kisses and piston in and out and pant in Sherlock’s ear. At last, that friction that Sherlock had been craving was delivered; the delicious tingling and fullness that he had longed for on all of his lonely heats was his. He had gotten through his once-yearly heats with the help of some dildos, but they were nothing compared to this. And this wasn’t even heat, this was just the natural lust the two men felt for each other. How much more intense would sharing his heat with John be?

He felt his stomach draw in tighter and tighter, heard John pant harder and harder, and then his doctor went completely still in his arms. Where their groins were pressed flush together, he could feel the Alpha’s testicles, and could feel his cock twitching deep inside. The knowledge that he had made John come pushed Sherlock over the edge a second time; he hunched forward, clawing at John’s back, trying to hang on as he doubled up over his clenching abdomen.

Afterwards, it took John quite some time to come back to himself. Sherlock held him in his arms, relishing the weight of his doctor pressing down onto him, and wiped his sweaty fringe away from his forehead. Eventually, John stirred, and blindly reached up to kiss Sherlock again. The detective happily obliged, noticing the way that John seemed completely boneless and unable to focus his eyes. He came back to himself very slowly, wincing when his over-sensitive cock slipped out of the detective’s ass. A rush of pale white semen came with it, creating a wet spot in the sheets. Sherlock scrunched up his face; he decided he didn’t much like the sensation of warm cum seeping out of his anus.

John mumbled an apology and pulled himself up and to the side, so that their heads were evenly beside each other on the pillow. His dark blue eyes seemed clearer now, and he seemed to be scanning Sherlock’s face for something: discomfort, perhaps? Finding none, he relaxed, and yawned, scratching his face. Sherlock grinned.

“Well, John, I am quite pleased,” he rumbled, voice rougher and hoarser than normal from all the yelling. John grinned. “Yeah?” he asked, eyes sparkling. He ran a tanned hand though the Omega’s crazily tousled curls. Sherlock leaned into the touch, enjoying the closeness.

“Mmmm. Yes. Very pleased, John. I think that I shall invite you to the event in two months’ time.”

John giggled. “What kind of party is it that _this_ was the audition?” he teased, uncomprehending, still petting Sherlock’s hair.

“Well, my heat, of course. Do keep up John.”

John’s hand froze, and Sherlock frowned, annoyed that the petting had stopped. He opened his eyes to see what had made the Alpha pause, and saw that the man’s face was very serious, dark eyes scanning the detective’s face.

“Sherlock. Are you—“ he choked briefly, looked away, cleared his throat, and looked back. “You. I. This is a big step, Sherlock. To share something like that. Are you sure you want to share it… with me?”

“Of course, John,” Sherlock said irritably. “That’s what I just said, isn’t it? I wouldn’t say something I don’t mean. Unless… you aren’t interested. You aren’t under any obligation, of course, I completely understand if you don’t-“

“Shh,” John hushed him, resuming his petting. “I am interested, Sherlock, of course I am. I’ve always wanted—“ here he choked off again, and was silent for a few moments to compose himself. “I would be honoured, Sherlock, to share your heat with you. I never thought that—thought that you, or any Omega really, would be interested. In me. I mean, there are many other Alphas out there; ones who are taller, and of better social status, and more—“

“That is patently ridiculous,” Sherlock announced. “Why on earth would I want someone who is not you? Stop saying stupid things, John, and keep petting me.”

John obediently continued petting, and pulled Sherlock’s head under his chin. He fondly kissed the top of Sherlock’s head, and the detective thought he might be imagining it, but he could have sworn he felt faint drops of wetness on top of his head too.

“Thank you, Sherlock,” John whispered, and pet Sherlock into a peaceful sleep.

 

………………………………………………………………………………….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make it as real as possible! Feel free to leave constructive criticism/comments below


	13. Epilogue

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Sherlock was informed a few days after the poolside arrest that their criminal had confessed. He confessed to killing the first man and putting him in the water cistern, then the second man and putting him in the makeshift swamp. Donovan and Lestrade had found enough evidence at his residence and in his van to build up a very strong case against him, but were still holding him for questioning—he had hinted, and Lestrade believed, that there were more bodies.

Sherlock believed there were more bodies too. He had been building up to this for a very long time, and had most likely raped and killed blonde Omegas before this without attempting to preserve their bodies. Sherlock was mildly interested in solving this puzzle—how many victims were there, and where were they hidden?—but not enough to pester Lestrade about it. If he wanted Sherlock’s help, he’d call.

John also received a phone call from Lestrade, this time with an update on the victim.

“He’s making a full recovery,” John informed Sherlock, smiling happily. “Apparently he’s extremely grateful to you. He knows that you had figured out who the criminal was, and brought the police along to the stakeout to arrest the creep.”

Sherlock nodded. He had deduced as much while the swimmer had been taken away in the ambulance, but it was still nice to hear the man’s health confirmed. Although he tried to play it cool, like he was unaffected, he could see the warm look in John’s eye and realised that he couldn’t keep his emotions hidden from John like he had in the past.

Surprisingly, Sherlock discovered that he didn’t actually _want_ to keep his real feelings a secret from John anymore.

Before he had time to analyse this startling revelation, the detective was distracted by a beeping sound on his laptop. A new email from a potential client.

It first seemed like a typical sob story: a beta woman with a missing husband. He had gone in to the city on a ‘business trip’ and never came back. At first read, Sherlock assumed mistress, but on second reading realised he was quite incorrect. No, this was something else.

“Tell me, John,” Sherlock murmured, “are you feeling up for a little legwork?”

John grinned.

“Always.”

…………………………………..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be an appendix, of sorts


	14. Appendix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just extras

Well, after many attempts to edit these photos into the previous chapters, it seems I have been foiled. Thanks to everyone who shared their wisdom regarding photo insertion here on this website, I followed all of your instructions (one after the other!), and was unable to get anything other than broken links. As my ex boyfriend once said: It's not you, it's me.

 

I have created a photobucket album with all of the photos of the swimsuits.

 

http://s1149.photobucket.com/user/biogrrrrl/library/?view=recent&page=1

 

They go in order: The 1st suit is the one Sherlock's mum liked. The 2nd pic is the suit Sherlock actually ended up getting. The 3rd suit is Sherlock's adult wetsuit, the one he awkwardly wears to the YMCA. The 3rd and 4th suits are ones the omegas wore in the locker room at the YMCA. 

 

Note: the last suit is unisex, and is shown on a great female swimmer, Leisel Jones. I imagine that 'Blake' would have a similar hairstyle though, tee hee

 

I have sketched out the basic plotline of a sequel to this story. It will be called 'Alpha' and will go into much more detail about John and his past. Since I am essentially Sherlock, it may take me a while to figure out how to write from John's point of view, but I'm excited about the challenge.

This story was primarily focussed on Omegas, the way they are viewed in society, etc. I'd like to get more in-depth about the Alpha side of things, maybe show some of the prejudices John had to face growing up in a mainly Beta society. I also would like to see some more BAMF! John. Also, Sherlock's heat, and all of the typical omegaverse physiological changes that happen during that time (knots!).

 

Thanks everyone for enjoying this story with me. I hope it brought you some happiness.


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